PDF link to full report: https://ijvtpr.com/index.php/IJVTPR/article/view/102/291

A leading French university has cancelled its contract with a commercial provider of academic data to switch to a non-profit rival, boosting a growing movement to make research available for free.

From January 1, the Sorbonne will work with OpenAlex, a recently developed service offering free online access to search and analytical tools for academics’ publications, after dropping its longstanding partnership with Web of Science, owned by UK-based Clarivate.

The action is part of a wider pushback against the current model in academic publishing, where researchers publish and review papers for free but have to buy expensive subscriptions to the journals in which they are published to analyse data relating to their work. Thousands of researchers have turned to open-access platforms in recent years.

Original article.

New imaging and scientific investigations by a team including a King's College London academic has found traces of the original paint used to decorate the Parthenon Sculptures, revealing they were once in fact brightly colored.

Exhibited at the British Museum, the Parthenon Sculptures, originally from ancient Greece, have for centuries been admired for their white brilliance—yet new evidence finally proves they haven't always been this color.

A team of investigators from King's, the British Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago has used digital imaging techniques and scientific instrumentation to examine the sculptures at microscopic level, and discovered a "wealth of surviving paint," revealing that the sculptures had originally been painted in multiple colors, patterns and designs.

Their study was published today in the journal Antiquity.

"Even if the surfaces were not explicitly prepared for the application of paint, however, carving and color were unified in their conception. The Parthenon artists were sympathetic to the final intended polychrome sculpture, providing surfaces that evoked textures similar to those of the subjects represented. It is likely that the painters took advantage of these mimetic surfaces to achieve the final effects," says Dr. Will Wootton, Reader in Classical Art and Archaeology and Head of Classics Department.

Researchers used visible-induced luminescence imaging on the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum, a non-invasive technique developed by Dr. Giovanni Verri from the Art Institute of Chicago that can detect microscopic traces of a pigment called Egyptian blue, revealing the tiniest remnants of paint and patterns.

Egyptian blue is a man-made pigment composed of calcium, copper and silicon; it was already used in Egypt around 3000 BCE and was virtually the only blue pigments used in Greece and Rome.

Small traces of white and purple pigment were also detected on the sculptures. True purple pigment was very valuable in the ancient Mediterranean and was produced from shellfish, but the Parthenon purple apparently was not.

Paint does not often survive over time, especially when exposed to the elements throughout the centuries, and so by the time ancient Greek sculptures were being studied, most of the color had already worn away. This meant for a long time many believed that ancient Greek art only used white marble.

Additionally, historic restorations have often removed any lasting traces of paint, to reestablish the assumed original "whiteness" of the sculpture. This has made it difficult to understand and reconstruct the sculptures' original appearance.

"The Parthenon Sculptures at the British Museum are considered one of the pinnacles of ancient art and have been studied for centuries now by a variety of scholars. Despite this, no traces of color have ever been found and little is known about how they were carved," notes Dr. Verri.

The carving of the sculptures shows no distinct technical intervention between the surface finish of the marble and the application of paint. Instead, it indicates that the sculptors focused on reproducing the intended form (e.g. wool, linen, skin, etc.), rather than crafting a special surface for the adhesion of paint through, for example, keying or abrasion.

These preliminary findings suggest that the painting of the Parthenon Sculptures was a more elaborate undertaking then ever imagined. This supports the belief that the colors, together with the carvings of Ancient Greek sculpture were important for its creators and intended audiences.

Look back at the chronicle of global pandemics, and the flu pandemic of 1918 stands out as an anomaly for one reason: According to the history books, it struck healthy adults in their prime just as often, if not more so, than the weak or sickly.

This assumption has influenced research and literature for decades.

But new research published Oct. 9 in the journal PNAS suggests it may not be true at all.

In examining the skeletal remains of nearly 400 individuals, researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder and McMaster University found that in 1918—just like in 2020—people exposed to environmental, social or nutritional stressors before-hand were significantly more likely to succumb to a novel virus when it emerged.

A groundbreaking study from The University of Hong Kong analyzed societal factors influencing happiness across 152 countries. Key findings indicate that beyond a certain economic threshold, wealth doesn't boost happiness; instead, generosity, strong social support, personal freedom, and support systems for aging populations play crucial roles in fostering well-being.

The AMOC is a complex tangle of currents that works like a giant global conveyor belt. It transports warm water from the tropics toward the North Atlantic, where the water cools, becomes saltier and sinks deep into the ocean, before spreading southwards.

It plays a crucial role in the climate system, helping regulate global weather patterns. Its collapse would have enormous implications, including much more extreme winters and sea level rises affecting parts of Europe and the US, and a shifting of the monsoon in the tropics.

I saw the recent article about the Zinc-air battery and about a year ago I've heard of a solid state battery technology. It got me interested in thinking that there might be a battery made in the future that could be made exclusively from resources that can be grown or renewed. How many years do you think we're off from getting that kind of battery invented?

Researchers from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israël have managed to grow a synthetic fetus from stem cells, without using human reproductive cells or a womb. The ‘model-embryo’ exhibits the same properties as a 14-day old human embryo, even emitting hormones detected in commercial pregnancy tests. By using chemicals, the stem cells can be ‘programmed’ to change into the four cells found in a human embryo, after which growth started. The researchers hope to use this as a way to gain insight in the early developmental stages of human life.