Long before Shakespeare portrayed her as history's most exotic femme fatale, Cleopatra was revered throughout the Arab world - for her brain. Medieval Arab scholars never referred to the Egyptian queen's appearance and made no mention of the dangerous sensuality that supposedly corrupted Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Instead they marvelled at her intellectual accomplishments: from alchemy and medicine to philosophy, mathematics and town planning, according to a new book.Even Elizabeth Taylor, who played the title role in the 1963 epic Cleopatra, would have struggled to inject sex appeal into this queen.
Arab writers depict Cleopatra's court as a place of intellectual seminars and scholarship rather than the more traditional vision of kohl-rimmed eyes and hedonistic intrigue. "They admired her scientific knowledge and her administrative ability," said author Okasha el-Daly, who is based at the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London. In Egyptology: The Missing Millennium he writes that "Arabic sources often referto Cleopatra as 'the virtuous scholar' and cite scientific books written by her as the definitive works in their field". She was also regarded as a great builder, he claims, responsible among other things for a canal to supply Alexandria with Nile water.
King Tutankhamun was not murdered and may have died of complications from a broken leg, say researchers who hope the pharaoh will now be left alone. A CT scan on the Egyptian king's 3,300 year-old mummified body indicates that he may have suffered the fracture shortly before his death, aged 19. Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said the research suggests the boy king died after the wound became infected. Not all the team agree, but all now reject the long-standingmurder charge.
Little is known about Tutankhamun's 10-year rule after he succeeded Akhenaten, who had abandoned Egypt's old gods in favour of monotheism. When the body was x-rayed in 1968, a shard of bone was found in his skull, prompting speculation that he was killed by a blow. Some historians have argued he was killed for attempting to bring back polytheism. Others believe he was assassinated by Ay, his ambitious army commander, who succeeded him. Last November, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni approved a project to move Tutankhamun's body for the first time to the CairoMuseum.The mummy, consisting of a skull, chest bones and two other bones, underwent a scan which produced cross-sectional images of the remains. Researchers, who announced the results of the scan performed in January, said they found no evidence of a blow to the back of his head, and no other evidence of foul play.
Celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller has addressed the Oxford Union, following in the footsteps of Mother Theresa, Michael Jackson and US Presidents. Mr Geller, of Sonning, Berkshire, intended to prove his psychic abilities by offering to fix any broken watches members ofthe Union have.
The Union set up a special camera and screen so members could see their watches being fixed by Mr Geller. Society Vice-President Vlad Bermant said he was sure of a packed house. "Uri Geller is quite simply the most famous alternative entertainer in Britain, and it is an honour to have him at the Oxford Union," said Mr Bermant. Mr Geller is set to appear atthe Union on 9 March. The Oxford Union is probably the best known debating society in the world.
If you think it's sometimes hard to understand how a teenager's mind works, have some sympathy for Albert Einstein's mother. When he was just a teenager, Einstein was pondering what a light wave would look like if he could observe it while moving at light speed. That's just the sort of gee-whiz anecdote that can distance normal people from Einstein's achievements (and from physics in general). But what Einstein did 100 years ago this year is neither irrelevant to everyday life nor merely arcane scientific lore. Without the revolutionary papers he wrote in 1905, we would barely recognize the world aroundus.
Where would we be without him?"We would be in a glorified 19th century," said Joao Magueijo, author of Faster Than the Speed of Light and a theoretical physicist at the Blackett Laboratory in London's Imperial College. "I mean it in terms of everyday life. His work affected the foundations of physics but also technology, and by extension history, society and culture." How could one man have such an effect? Einstein left school at 15 without an impressive record, trained in Zurich, Switzerland, as a teacher in physics and mathematics, and took a job as a clerk in a patent office. But at work and in his spare time, he formalized his adolescent thoughts into a paper called, "On the Electrodynamics ofMoving Bodies." It was June 1905, the year that Einstein changed physics, and the way we regard the universe, forever. Einstein had already rocked the physics world that year, in March. He would do so again a couple of months later. To commemorate the centenary of this annus mirabilis, and to mark the 50 years since Einstein's death, 2005 has been designated World Year of Physics. (In the United Kingdom and Ireland it's called Einstein Year.)
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Long before Shakespeare portrayed her as history's most exotic femme fatale, Cleopatra was revered throughout the Arab world - for her brain. Medieval Arab scholars never referred to the Egyptian queen's appearance and made no mention of the dangerous sensuality that supposedly corrupted Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Instead they marvelled at her intellectual accomplishments: from alchemy and medicine to philosophy, mathematics and town planning, according to a new book.Even Elizabeth Taylor, who played the title role in the 1963 epic Cleopatra, would have struggled to inject sex appeal into this queen. 
View: Full Article | Source: The Australian 
King Tutankhamun was not murdered and may have died of complications from a broken leg, say researchers who hope the pharaoh will now be left alone. A CT scan on the Egyptian king's 3,300 year-old mummified body indicates that he may have suffered the fracture shortly before his death, aged 19. Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said the research suggests the boy king died after the wound became infected. Not all the team agree, but all now reject the long-standingmurder charge. 
Celebrity spoon-bender Uri Geller has addressed the Oxford Union, following in the footsteps of Mother Theresa, Michael Jackson and US Presidents. Mr Geller, of Sonning, Berkshire, intended to prove his psychic abilities by offering to fix any broken watches members ofthe Union have. 
If you think it's sometimes hard to understand how a teenager's mind works, have some sympathy for Albert Einstein's mother. When he was just a teenager, Einstein was pondering what a light wave would look like if he could observe it while moving at light speed. That's just the sort of gee-whiz anecdote that can distance normal people from Einstein's achievements (and from physics in general). But what Einstein did 100 years ago this year is neither irrelevant to everyday life nor merely arcane scientific lore. Without the revolutionary papers he wrote in 1905, we would barely recognize the world aroundus. 
