SCIENCE and INVENTIONS of OLD

The subtitle of Jean Gímpel’s The Medieval Machine was The Industrial Revolution of the Middle Ages. While a full blown industrial revolution may be hyperbole, it certainly is a reversal of previous attitudes held by historians, especially historians like Edward Gibbon who characterized the medieval period as “the triumph of barbarism and religion.” In thus saying, Gibbon merely reasserted what the intellectual elite of his day considered the worst aspects of humanity--folkways and faith. However, as any modern historian can tell you, Gibbon is useful for understanding only his own day and age, and not the subjects on which he wrote. Even though no modern historian takes …

Secret Renaissance Ingredient Found: Glass By CARL HARTMAN, Associated Press Writer 53 minutes ago WASHINGTON - How did paintings by Tintoretto and other Venetian Renaissance artists get their special glow? Using an electron microscope, Barbara Berrie, senior conservation scientist at the National Gallery of Art, discovered one of their secrets: tiny bits of glass the artists mixed with their pigments. "By looking beyond the limits of their usual practice and transforming materials from other trades to their painting, the great artists of the Renaissance created a palette that gave them an immediate and lasting reputation as brilliant colorists," Berrie said…

Close encounter This week, the moon seems spectacularly big in the sky. What's going on? Renowned astronomer Patrick Moore explains the phenomenon of the moon illusion Friday June 24, 2005 The Guardian For the past two evenings there has been something rather interesting in the sky. We have seen a very good example of the famous moon illusion. When the full moon is low down, it appears much larger than when it is high in the sky. This was noted many hundreds of years ago, and was even described by Ptolemy, the last of the great astronomers of ancient times. The effect is very noticeable; the full moon really does seem larger when near the horizon, yet this is pur…

Chemistry: CaSO4-2(H2O), Hydrated Calcium Sulfate Class: Sulfates Uses: plaster, wall board, some cements, fertilizer, paint filler, ornamental stone, Medieval carved window and door frames, etc.. Gypsum is one of the more common minerals in sedimentary environments. It is a major rock forming mineral that produces massive beds, usually from precipitation out of highly saline waters. Since it forms easily from saline water, gypsum can have many inclusions of other minerals and even trapped bubbles of air and water. Gypsum has several variety names that are widely used in the mineral trade. "Selenite" is the colorless and transparent variety that shows a p…

U.S. National - AP Way of Life Wanes for Anthracite Miners By HELEN O'NEILL, AP Special Correspondent HEGINS, Pa. - The scars are barely visible much of the time, hidden beneath a veil of black. Only in the evenings, when the men wash away the day's grime, do they come to light. They snake across the men's hands and faces and necks — thin squiggly lines and thick fat creases, and sometimes great gouges torn from their skin. But the strangest thing about the scars is their color. They are a deep and startling blue. They tell a story, these odd-shaped wounds, of a dark, dangerous world that men cling to, women fear, and sons stubbornly follow their…