Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Denmark in Flames!
Oh, wait -- that's Pakistan. After the absurd uproar over a dozen so-so cartoons in a Danish newspaper two years ago, Copenhagen's Royal Library is trying to acquire the originals for their permanent collection. I did my part to fan the dying embers of controversy back to something resembling a flame today at Spiegel ONLINE.
Labels: cartoons, denmark, spiegel
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Cambodian Cityscapes
Australian researchers took pictures of the ancient Cambodian city of Angkor Wat using American airplanes. The resulting analysis -- Angkor was the largest urban area the world had ever seen, right up until its collapse around 1,500 AD. Read my brief piece about the research in Discover magazine's year-end issue.
Labels: angkor wat, Archaeology, cambodia, discover
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Hot Hot Heat
It's hard to imagine life without spice. Even prehistoric people wanted a little something to toast the tongue, and it turns out the chili pepper was one of the first plants to be domesticated in the Americas. Researchers at the Smithsonian say it was tamed a little more than 6,000 years ago -- not long after food staples like corn and tubers. Discover magazine featured the discovery at #49 on their list of the top 100 science stories of 2007. Check out my piece on the discovery here.
Cliched observation, but I always find it odd that foods like the potato, tomato and pepper didn't exist in Europe or Asia 500 years ago. Can you imagine Chinese food without chili, or Italian
food without tomatoes? Or Irish food without potatoes, for that matter? (Not everything in the Columbian exchange was good -- syphilis was one New World import Columbus' crew probably wished they had left behind.)
Cliched observation, but I always find it odd that foods like the potato, tomato and pepper didn't exist in Europe or Asia 500 years ago. Can you imagine Chinese food without chili, or Italian
food without tomatoes? Or Irish food without potatoes, for that matter? (Not everything in the Columbian exchange was good -- syphilis was one New World import Columbus' crew probably wished they had left behind.)
Labels: chili pepper, discover, science
