In 1883, a manuscript found near the Dead Sea caused an international sensation. It was denounced as a fake, and soon vanished. But what if it was the only known source text for the Hebrew Bible?
Mobile technology helps give voice to nonverbal autistic children during pandemic
Noel Nyquist and her daughter, Elle, complete a language learning activity using SPEAKall! (Purdue Research Foundation image)
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue University technology to assist nonverbal children on the autism spectrum is helping families around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has forced schools and clinics to rely more on remote options.
The award-winning SPEAKall! application functions as a smart device communication board and language learning platform that teaches students to associate words and images.
In the application, students choose digital cards and move them to the speech bar, then the application reads the sequence aloud word by word. Hearing how the words sound can encourages the autistic learner to make an attempt at saying the word with his or her own voice.
Antiques dealer Moses Willhelm Shapira released the scroll to the world in 1883
The 15 fragments claim to contain words from the biblical book of Deuteronomy
He sold them to the British Museum for £1 million but they were branded as fake
The museum sold the fragments at auction for £25 and they disappeared forever
A new study into the linguistics and structure of the words based on drawings and writings from the 18th century suggest it may actually be ancient text
There are about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes worldwide and about 50 eruptions occur each year. But it’s still difficult to predict when and how these eruptions will happen or how they’ll unfold. Now, new insight into the physical processes inside volcanoes are giving scientists a better understanding of their behavior, which could help protect the 1 billion people who live close to volcanoes.
There are about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes worldwide and about 50 eruptions occur each year. But it’s still difficult to predict when and how these eruptions will happen or how they’ll unfold. Now, new insight into the physical processes inside volcanoes are giving scientists a better understanding of their behavior, which could help protect the 1 billion people who live close to volcanoes.
T
he wooly mammoth (
Mammuthus primigenius) is an iconic animal, like the saber tooth tiger or dire wolf, from a time in human history when our position at the top of the global food chain was decidedly not assured (and being something s prey was not limited to just other humans). Perhaps this is a reason that resurrection of mammoths using Jurassic Park-like technology has some currency and appeal (
but see
How to Clone a Mammoth for reasons why this may not be such a good idea). Perhaps paradoxically, the mammoth arose in Africa 5 million years ago and like its (very) distant