Brights News Feed

News broke this morning that the world-famous historic tea clipper ship, the Cutty Sark — housed in Greenwich on the banks of London’s Thames River — has suffered major damage in a blaze which is being treated as suspicious. (See Guardian: “Fire devastates Cutty Sark“)

On the same day in the same township, known as the “centre of the world” on account of being the meridian according to which all international date limes refer, the Greenwich villagers had been celebrating a new addition to their rich scientific heritage: a new planetarium with a conical design which geometrically links it to the shape of the world. (See Guardian: “Keep Watching the Skies“. Sadly, this article, also published this morning but pre-written, refers to the Cutty Sark restoration project and the plan to re-house the ship in a giant glass structure, unknowing of this morning’s fire.)

Scientists using multispectral imaging techniques have uncovered a third text hidden on the papyrus of the Archimedes Palimpsest. (Palimpsesting is a process in which the ink on papyrus is washed out using citric acid or a similar solvent and written over again with a new, more modern work.) The medieval book superficially appears to contain only Christian prayers from the twelfth century (”The Euchologion”). But a copy of work by Archimedes was discovered on the pages as early as 1906, although not fully uncovered until spectral analysis shed more light in 2002, when a copy of a treatise by fourth-century BCE politician Hyperides was also discovered.

Now, a new analysis has been reported to the American Philosophical Association yesterday, showing that a newly discovered third hidden work underlies the prayers, the Archimedes, and the Hyperides. The third work is a commentry by Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle’s Categories, and translations of the first few pages already suggest that it may shed valuable light on the historical foundations of logic.

(See National Geographic)

A couple from Powys, Wales, have been pursued by a church in Warwickshire for seventeen years under the auspices of an archaic law which holds them responsible to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds of church repair costs, despite the couple having nothing to do with the church in question.

Today a High Court judge upheld around half of the church’s claims, landing the Wallbanks with a colossal bill of £186,969 plus VAT. The couple will be forced to sell their farm in Powys, the source of their livlihood, to pay for the Warwickshire church of St John the Baptist’s bills. And of course, they still cannot sell the land in Warwickshire that comes with the repair liability because of what Gail Wallbank called the “vicious circle” that the obligation puts them in, i.e. no one will buy the land. In response to today’s verdict she accused the church of “not living by its teaching” and of hiding behind the “archaic law”.

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Stonehenge has long been a symbol of anything. To some it is a work of secular awe, a scientific instrument for connecting to the calendar of the cosmos. For others it is a work of pagan veneration, born of a religious impulse for a mystic beyond. For yet others it is some big stones that don’t even have a roof.

Now, achaeologists have announced the discovery and excavation of a village, of possibly many dozens of houses, a short distance from the site. The settlement dates from the time of stonehenge’s construction, around 4,600 years ago. The interpretation of this new finding parallels the symbolic ambiguity of the monument itself, this time with the divide falling along national borders.

For the British, the BBC reports the discovery of “Stonehenge builders’ houses“. For the Americans, the LA Times reports the unearthing of a “religious complex“. And for the Australians, The Australian reports the discovery of a “party village“.

The Independent calls Hrant Dink “the 1,500,001st victim of the Armenian genocide”.

An educated and generous journalist and academic - editor of the weekly Turkish-Armenian newspaper Agos - he tried to create a dialogue between the two nations to reach a common narrative of the 20th century’s first holocaust. And he paid the price: two bullets shot into his head and two into his body by an assassin in the streets of Istanbul yesterday afternoon.

Turkey has been struggling to change the perception of itself, with the EU demanding that it relax censorial laws before it can enter the Union. Writers like Hrant Dink himself have previously been accused and found guilty of the crime of “insulting Turkishness”. The nationalists who are in all probability behind the assassination may at the same time have dealt a further blow to Turkey’s bid to join the EU.

The new Archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, dramatically resigned this morning, during the Mass intended for his own installation. Having repeatedly denied his involvement Communit-era secret police in the past, he had confessed on Friday to collaborating.

The Roman Catholic Church plays a huge role in Polish social and political life, and Poland in turn is a prominent component of the Church in Europe and the world, among other things being the birthplace of previous Pope, Jean-Paul II (Karol Józef Wojtyła). Wielgus’s resignation represents a personal embarassment to new Pope, Benedict XVI (Joseph Alois Ratzinger), who appointed him last month.

Despite brutal Communist persecution of the Church in Poland, it is estimated that up to 15% of Polish Catholic priests were collaborators.

(Via BBC.)

So claims David Farley in Slate (”Who stole Jesus’ foreksin?“) and in his upcoming book on the mysterious disappearance of the relic of the prepuce of the Messiah.

Just what the holy foreskin was doing in the priest’s house—in a shoebox at the back of his wardrobe, no less—and why and how it disappeared has been debated ever since the relic vanished. Some suspect the village priest sold it for a heavenly sum; others say it was stolen by thieves and ended up on the relics black market; some even suggest Satanists or neo-Nazis are responsible. But the most likely culprit is an unlikely one: the Vatican.

Yuli Tamir, Israel’s Education minister, has provoked outrage by ordering a controversial change to childrens’ school textbooks; that they should show Israel’s borders as they were prior to the 1967 war, bringing them into line with international law, under which the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are regarded as illegally occupied territory.

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Cambridge University (UK) has launched a new website which will make available all of Charles Darwin’s writings for the first time online. Along with earlier editions of published works that have not been available online before, the collection will also include some notebooks and diary entries have never been published before, including notes from the Beagle voyage that were used as material for The Voyage of the ‘Beagle’. The site is http://darwin-online.org.uk/