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While enthusiasts across the world pored over the Voynich manuscript, penned by an unknown author in a language no one understands, a research team at the University of Arizona solved one of its biggest mysteries: When was the book made?University of Arizona researchers have cracked one of the puzzles surrounding what has been called "the world's most mysterious manuscript" – the Voynich manuscript, a book filled with drawings and writings nobody has been able to make sense of to this day. Using radiocarbon dating, a team led by Greg Hodgins in the UA's department of physics has found the manuscript's...

There are things more important than winning a race...(I know, hard to believe)... These guys could have scared the pup off the back and kept racing but instead made a commendable choice. From Randy Smith A very heartwarming story from Campbell Cup this weekend. A baby seal stricken with a horrible fishing net around its neck jumped aboard the Andrews 70 Alchemy, seemingly reaching out for help for its pain. The crew took the seal into Alamitos Bay ...and handed it over to a Marine Animal Rescue team. The latest report is that the seal will survive. This is what...

LOS ANGELES, April 10 (UPI) -- The son of the man who directed the 1959 Hollywood film classic "Ben-Hur" said he is producing a new version of the story as a $30 million TV miniseries. David Wyler, son of director William Wyler, is producing the remake with Alchemy TV, Variety.com reported Thursday..... http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2008/04/10/ben-hur_headed_for_tv_miniseries_remake/2178/

JERUSALEM: Renowned British scientist Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern physics and astronomy, predicted the world would end in 2060. He made the prediction in a 1704 letter that went on show in Jerusalem on Sunday. A famed rationalist, who secured a royal exemption from the ordination in the Church of England that was normally expected of academics of his day so he would not have to follow its teachings, Newton nonetheless based his prediction on a Biblical text. Working from verses in the Book of Daniel, the elaborator of the classical laws of gravity, motion and optics argued...

This thread is intended to be a workshop, where we can thrash out the definitions on which all the science-literate freepers can agree. When we are agreed on one final list, we can then link to it in future threads, in the hope of bringing some order to the linguistic chaos that too often prevails in the science threads. In discussions about science and philosophy, we must be careful about our terminology, so that we're all using words in the same way. Dictionaries provide multiple definitions, but not all are appropriate in a specific context. It only generates confusion to...

Heavy elements approach fabled ‘island of stability’. Tantalising evidence of two new chemical elements has been produced by a team of Russian and American scientists. Their observations indicate that we may be getting close to the fabled ‘island of stability’ in the periodic table, where heavy elements should be more stable than their neighbours. If confirmed, the discovery will bring the tally of known elements to 116. “It’s one of the most fundamental questions — how many elements are there?” says Paddy Regan, a nuclear physicist at the University of Surrey. “There must be an upper limit, and this work...