Archive for the ‘History’ Category
Archaeologists Use a Hacked Kinect To Create 3-D Scans of Dig Sites
The future of digging
Researchers hope students traveling to an archaeological dig in Jordan will use a hacked Microsoft Kinect as a mobile scanning system, making 3-D models of ancient sites that can then be visited in a virtual-reality environment.
For now, the system relies upon an overhead camera system, so it only works indoors, but computer scientists at the University of California-San Diego want to modify it so it will work in the field. Researchers at UCSD are planning a future trip to archaeological sites in Jordan, where the system could help catalog their finds.
Jürgen Schulze, a research scientist at UCSD’s division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2), eventually want to use the Kinect to scan entire buildings and neighborhoods. This ability would have applications far beyond archaeology, points out.
The modified ArKinect — archaeology and Kinect — would scan an entire dig site, and the data would be used to reconstruct the site in 3-D. Calit2 has an immersive VR system called StarCAVE, a 360-degree, 16-panel setup, which allows researchers to interact with virtual objects. A realistic 3-D portrayal of ancient cookware, for instance, would be a lot more valuable than a 2-D photograph, because it would show more detail and craftsmanship and even help researchers understand how an artifact was used.
“There may be experts off site that have access to a CAVE system, and they could collaborate remotely with researchers in the field,” Schulze said in a UCSD release.
The technology could potentially help recovery efforts in disaster zones by digitizing a scene that can then be viewed remotely, he said.
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New Geographic Data Analysis Gives Historians a Futuristic Window Into the Past
"Spatial humanities," the future of history
Geographic Information Systems, which can analyze information related to a physical location, are helping historians and geographers study past landscapes like Gettysburg, reconstructing what Robert E. Lee would have seen from Seminary Ridge. Researchers are studying the parched farmlands of the 1930s Dust Bowl, and even reconstructing scenes from Shakespeare’s 17th-century London.
But far from simply adding layers of complexity to historical study, GIS-enhanced landscape analysis is leading to new findings, the reports. Historians studying the Battle of Gettysburg have shed light on the tactical decisions that led to the turning point in the Civil War. And others examining records from the Dust Bowl era have found that extensive and irresponsible land use was not necessarily to blame for the disaster.
GIS has long been used by city planners who want to record changes to the landscape over time. And interactive map technology like Google Maps has led to . But by analyzing data that describes the physical attributes of a place, historians are finding answers to new questions.
Anne Kelly Knowles and colleagues at Middlebury College in Vermont culled information from historical maps, military documents explaining troop positions, and even paintings to reconstruct the Gettysburg battlefield. The researchers were able to explain what Robert E. Lee could and could not see from his vantage points at the Lutheran seminary and on Seminary Hill. He probably could not see the Union forces amassing on the eastern side of the battlefield, which helps explain some of his tactical decisions, Knowles said.
Geoff Cunfer at the University of Saskatchewan studied a trove of data from all 208 affected counties in Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and Kansas — annual precipitation reports, wind direction, agricultural censuses and other data that would have been impossible to sift through without the help of a computer. He learned dust storms were common throughout the 19th century, and that areas that saw nary a tiller blade suffered just as much.
The new data-mapping phenomenon is known as spatial humanities, the Times reports. Check out their to find out how advanced technology is the future of history.
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"How It Works" Throughout History, In Pictures
Some of the greatest moments ever in figuring out how stuff works
Here, we take a look back at some of history's most fascinating "how it works moments" and the images that define them. It's not always a cutaway or a teardown, but our desire to see how things work with our own eyes hasn't changed over the years.
Click to launch a gallery of historical "how it works moments."
The Secrets of Yuri Gagarin, Fifty Years Later
Today we celebrate five decades of secrets, lies, and half-truths from space agencies
The story, while magnificent, left much to the imagination. Aside from the name of Gagarin’s spaceship, the Vostok (Russian for “East”), we knew almost nothing. What did the rocket, or the capsule, or Gagarin’s spacesuit look like? What were the details of the flight path and the cosmonaut’s activities? We heard the Vostok had blasted off from a spaceport called Baikonur, in south-central USSR, and that Gagarin landed in the capsule 108 minutes later, but just where remained a mystery.
Fifty years have come and gone since that April morning and pieces of Gagarin’s story, the story of the first human in space, have emerged. Internal reports suppressed until the collapse of the Soviet Union describe how Gagarin was in danger returning to Earth: A stubborn electrical cable kept the Vostok’s equipment section from jettisoning until the very last minute, which allowed the landing craft to rotate its heat-shielded underside into the fiery airflow of reentry, narrowly saving Gagarin from being burned in the atmosphere. And Gagarin hadn’t landed in the Vostok after all—he used his ejection seat and a parachute to touch down on the banks of the Volga. In order to get official recognition by international flight record groups, pilots had to land in their own craft. Rather than get disqualified, Moscow had ordered Gagarin to lie.
For the rest of his life, Gagarin remained an obedient Soviet hero, touring the world before returning to flight training. In 1968, while he was attempting to re-qualify as a solo jet pilot, his MiG-15 crashed and he died. He was 34.
Like so many things on that April morning 50 years ago, Baikonur, the spaceport, turned out to be partly a work of fiction too. The secret launchpad had been named after a small town 250 miles northeast. Many atlases, including the Oxford Encyclopedic, still designate the town Baikonur as “Russian spaceport.”
Today, privately owned spaceflight companies have already shown a range of attitudes about transparency. Some have shared photos and drawings of their vehicles. Some have broadcast live “rocket cam” views during actual launches, but cut the feed when trouble happens. And one company is so secretive it reportedly required family members attending company parties to sign confidentiality agreements. Before they lift off, they could learn something from how the USSR handled (and mishandled) the first man in space.
Project X Revealed: Three More Disappointing Space Secrets
1958: NOTSNIK
Early in the space race, the U.S. Navy tried to build 2.3-pound, eight-inch satellites that could clandestinely launch into orbit out of five-stage rockets. Although NOTSNIK (the “nik” was lifted from Sputnik) failed, and wasn’t declassified until the 1990s, a similar project was picked up by the Air Force in 1999.
1971: Project 714
Mao’s culture of secrecy surrounded China’s first manned space program, Project 714. It was so covert it had trouble getting funding, had only one telephone, and just managed to build a cardboard-and-wood mock-up of a spacecraft.
2010: Dragon
In a nod to previous secret payloads, before Space X’s capsule became the first commercial craft to orbit and return from space, founder Elon Musk announced that it carried a surprise payload. After landing, the cargo was revealed to be a wheel of cheese.
Scientists Say They May Have Found Lost City of Atlantis Near Spain
The research was unveiled Sunday in a new TV special.
This effort to find Atlantis began in 2004, when German physicist Rainer Kuhne identified some . Swamps at the mouth of Spain’s Guadalquivir River, northwest of Cadiz, held strange geometric shadows that some thought resembled the remains of a ringed city.
To follow up on the findings, teams of researchers from three countries used ground-penetrating radar, electrical resistivity tomography, magnetometers and spectrometers to map the ground and sniff out evidence of human-built objects buried in the mud. They say they found a communal oven and evidence of canal systems buried in Spain’s Donaña National Park.
Richard Freund, an archaeologist from in Connecticut, said a tsunami flooded the ancient community, located 60 miles inland.
“This is the power of tsunamis,” he said, .
The team also found artifacts from farther north that suggest refugees may have settled a second city, where they built memorial artworks to commemorate the one they lost.
Other researchers , however, including members of a Spanish team who have been studying the site since 2005.
Archaeologists have been looking for Atlantis since Plato first described it about 2,600 years ago in one of his late dialogues. He said the city was located near the “pillars of Hercules,” which classical scholars say is the Strait of Gibraltar. (The mudflats are just north of the strait.) Plato said Atlantis “in a single day and night... disappeared into the depths of the sea.”
Previous attempts to find it have looked ; on various Mediterranean and Aegean islands; the Bermuda Triangle; Bolivia; and even Antarctica. Historians have said Atlantis was inspired by the 1600 BCE volcanic explosion at Santorini, one of the largest in recorded history. Others maintain it’s simply a myth.
The Spanish team said they will present their own findings later this year.
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Tomb-Bot Will Be the First to Enter Final Secret Chambers of the Great Pyramid
The robot will traverse two unexplored shafts leading from the Queen's Chamber in the pyramid. Nobody knows where the shafts, which were discovered in 1872, lead.
Known as the Djedi project, after the magician whom the Egyptian king Khufu consulted when planning his pyramid, the robot will be able to drill through a secret door in the pyramid’s innards to see what lies beyond.
A robotics team from Leeds University in the UK is working with Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities to design the tomb bot, which is a follow-up to an earlier robotic mission that found the secret door in the first place.
The Pyramid of Khufu, after the king who built it around 2,560 BC, is the last remaining wonder of the ancient world. It involves a series of passageways and two rooms at its center, called the King’s Chamber and the Queen’s Chamber. Two shafts rise from the King’s Chamber at 45-degree angles toward the sky -- as the Independent reports, they’re thought to be a passageway to the heavens.
The Queen’s Chamber has two shafts too, but they don’t lead to the outside of the pyramid.
In 1992, researchers sent a camera up the shaft and found it was blocked by a limestone door with copper handles. Ten years later, researchers drilled through the door, hoping to unlock a treasure trove of artifacts -- but they found yet another door about 8 inches away. The Djedi project will drill through the second door and, researchers hope, follow the shaft to its end.
The team hopes to send the robot through the door by the end of the year, the Independent reports.
Robert Richardson, of the Leeds University School of Mechanical Engineering, says the team will continue the expedition until they reach the end of the shafts, and that they have no preconceptions about what they’ll find.
One can only hope it will be something .
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Four-Ton Transformer Tribute to Ancient Chinese General Meshes History and Sci-Fi
The sculpture was assembled from components of an old Jiefang brand vehicle, a 25-year-old military service truck employed by the People’s Liberation Army. Robo Guan Yu stands about 32 feet tall and wields a dynastic-era weapon that makes for a nice juxtaposition with the post-Revolutionary scrap he’s assembled from.
As for the , he was a respected general at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty and a key player in the civil war that ended it. Though his military exploits and valor have been pumped up to mythical standards over the years, he was apparently legitimately revered for his prowess at kungfu. Though Robo Guan Yu is unfortunately static, check out the accompanying promo video below to see the general’s latest moves.
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