Rolling back centuries of speculation and digging deep into the private life of Stratford’s favourite son. The soil, untouched for 400 years, and it’s hoped - the key to understanding more about William Shakespeare’s final days. By the time he moved to New Place, Shakespeare was already a household name. But little is known about how he spent the six years he lived here and that’s what this latest dig is aiming to change.
Kevin Colls, University of Birmingham:
“I think we can learn little bits on what he was eating, what he was drinking, so his lifestyle. We can learn a little about his hobbies in terms of what he was doing with his time, but the great mystery has to be where he actually lived. Did he live in the grand house along the front of the street or did he live in the very secluded cottage as documentary evidence suggests, hidden away from view to get on with his work?”
Previous digs all found evidence of Shakespeare’s high-status household, including smoking pipes and pottery. The first almost 150 years ago, was recorded in extraordinary detail but stopped short at the foundations.
It’s hoped excavating deeper than ever before, will reveal even more about William Shakespeare’s habits and shed new light on what inspired some of the most famous words ever written.
This is simply an audio and visual celebration of the book - any books, all books, in whichever language you like. Works by Jane Austen, Dickens, Henry Blake, Ernest Hemingway, Cervantes, Vargas Llosa, Tolstoy and Argentina’s own favourites, Borges and Sabato, line the walls of this tower, each wrapped in plastic for its own protection.
The United Nations has designated the city as the 2011 World Book Capital.
This book tower is 25 metres high and lined with 30,000 donations from more than 50 embassies. It’ll be dismantled at the end of the month and the books will form the beginning of a multi-lingual library.
The Buenos Aires Book Fair, one of the biggest in the world, has just ended, recording more visitors than ever before. The city boasts hundreds of bookshops and some cafes even supply works by Argentina’s most renowned literary icon, Jorge Luis Borges, to read over coffee. Buenos Aires is a city that loves its books and now it has a tower to prove it.
India is well known for its legions of computer programmers, but the country also has another face as the last bastion of the typewriter. Manual typewriters stayed popular in India long after developed nations had entirely switched to the keyboard and mouse.
As recently as the 1990s, the Mumbai plant of a company named Godrej and Boyce was turning out 50,000 typewriters a year. They were popular in a nation where reliable electricity supplies - essential for computers - are still by no means guaranteed.
But even in India, typewriter sales have slumped in the last ten years. Gradually, every manufacturer stopped making them, leaving only Godrej’s Mumbai plant - and that switched to making fridges two years ago. And now the firm says it only has 500 typewriters left in stock.
It’s a far cry from the heyday of the 1950s, when India’s then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru held up the humble typewriter as a symbol of the nation’s independence and industrialisation.
The first commercial typewriters were produced in the United States in the 1860s. The typewriter was the dominant office technology for more than a century until the computer came along.
One is the giant business, whose software powers more than 90% of the world’s computers. The other is the firm, which has revolutionised the way many communicate. Now Skype is being swallowed up by Microsoft.
It’s just eight years since Skype started helping people to make calls over the internet for nothing, and this is the third time it’s been bought and sold.
Microsoft has been struggling to prove it can compete with the likes of Google and Apple. Now as it tries to make an impact on the mobile-phone world, it wants Skype to help it become a bigger force.
Skype is now used by 170 million people around the world (each month), not just on their computers, but on the move - on their mobile phones and even on their tablet devices.
Microsoft wants to tap in to this connected community, but it’s paying a huge price for a business that isn’t even profitable.
Manchester United have one hand on the Premier League crown after crushing Chelsea’s late bid to snatch the trophy from their grasp. Chelsea had clawed themselves back into this title race, with a 10-game unbeaten run. At one stage this season they were 15 points off the lead. Going into this game, they were just three points adrift.
But they were undone by an electric start for the hosts: United took the lead after just 37 seconds through their Mexican striker, Javier Hernandez. Their captain, Nemanja Vidic, then made it 2-0. A Frank Lampard tap-in did give Chelsea hope, but United held on for the win that leaves them needing just one point to guarantee a record 19th title.
They’re also in the European Champions League final, so for their veteran Welsh winger Ryan Giggs, it’s been another hugely successful campaign:
"You know, I think the fighting spirit is there for all to see. Hopefully we can finish it off next week in what will be a
News of the find has awakened new hopes among the team of crash investigators, that they may finally find the flight data recorders, which they say are crucial to determine the cause of the crash.
There’s been speculation that malfunctioning speed sensors were to blame, but officials say other factors must have also contributed.
The search for the data recorders has been complicated and costly, with unmanned submarines diving to depths of up to 4,000 metres to scour the sea floor for traces of the plane.
Air France and the aircraft manufacturer Airbus, who’ve both been placed under investigation on charges of involuntary manslaughter over the crash, will be among those keen to see the flight recorders retrieved.
Japanese astronomers claim to have found ‘planets’ which don’t go round a star.
Writing in the magazine ‘Nature’ they say they have found ten Jupiter-sized objects which they could not connect to any solar system.
The researchers claim to have found ten dark gas giants floating at the heart of our Milky Way without any nearby star to illuminate them. Astronomers have long suspected such rogue planets existed, but this is the first evidence, and the Japanese team believe there could be as many out there as there are stars, a finding likely to shock many.
How they came into being is unclear. One theory is that they may be cast-outs, forgotten worlds ejected from infant solar systems by gravitational forces or interplanetary collisions.
Strictly speaking, the objects aren’t even planets, as by definition planets orbit a star or the remains of one. But should the researchers have their calculations right, then strange dark orbs which look very much like planets are out there, far far from any shining star.
Smallpox was eradicated in 1979 - but two stocks of live smallpox virus remain.
For years the debate over what to do with them has raged - in Geneva developing countries argued it was high time to destroy all known samples of a virus which in the past claimed millions of lives.
But the United States and Russia, the two countries which hold the virus samples - wanted to keep them for at least another five years - saying that if smallpox ever re-emerged - either by accident or even deliberately - the samples could be needed to create a vaccine.
That argument seemed finally, after days of division, to sway member states, and they approved a compromise - postponing a decision on destroying the virus samples for another three years.
And so the fate of one of the world’s deadliest viruses is still not decided - and the debate over whether the world is safer with it, or without it, will continue.
Muhammed Yunus is no stranger to controversy. He sent a letter of resignation earlier this month from his job as the head of Grameen Bank, after effectively being forced out. He told me it was very painful to leave because the non-profit-making institution was his ‘baby’ - but he had no other option left.
He said the prime minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, had been ‘badly advised’ when she accused his bank of ‘sucking blood’ from the poor.
Asked about a micro-finance crisis in India, where there were allegations of exorbitant interest rates and threatening tactics by lenders, he said commercial organisations which had entered the micro-credit business had ‘lost track.’
Muhammad Yunus:
“The idea of micro-credit was misused. Idea of micro-credit was abused. So when micro-credit focussed on the social issues turned into money-making issues, that was a mission drift completely.”
Professor Yunus denied suggestions that the broader concept of micro-credit had failed. He suggested that a separate banking system should be created for the poor, while profit-making companies in the sector should be not be allowed to call themselves micro-credit lenders.
Spectacular tropical clownfish who live around ocean coral reefs rely heavily on their hearing, say scientists. It helps them find a mate, forage for food, and crucially avoid predators lurking in the depths.
Scientists from the University of Bristol in England bred baby clownfish then exposed different groups of them to different levels of carbon dioxide in the water around them: one at today’s levels, and the others at the levels the world’s oceans are predicted to reach by 2050 and the year 2100.
They tested their hearing by piping in to each tank the sounds of the coral reef. Those in today’s conditions swam away from the noise of predators. Those in the mocked-up waters of the future showed no response, suggesting they couldn’t hear.
Scientists say the more carbon dioxide we emit, the more oceans absorb and the more acidic the water becomes, and that has potentially devastating consequences for fish.
What they don’t know though is whether fish will be able to adapt and tolerate the changing waters.
It may look like any other bike, but the clue is in the sound. What you can hear is a battery-powered motor that takes away all the effort.
The bikes can get up to 15 miles an hour. What was once a mountain is suddenly a molehill.
Steve Garadis:
In Britain at the moment, most people don’t really know what an electric bike is and what it can do. It’s just like normal cycling, but with an extra boost that pushes you up the hills. It means you don’t have to worry about headwinds. You don’t get horribly sweaty.
Reporter:
At this cafe, you can hire the bikes, you can also recharge them. The batteries last for about 40 miles. Other local businesses offer the same service.
What you won’t find here are cars. In fact, they’ve just opened up old railway tunnels to keep this trail traffic free.
For weeks police were puzzled by repeated thefts from suitcases firmly locked inside the luggage compartment of a coach travelling between Girona Airport and Barcelona.
After one journey when bags had again been broken into, one of the passengers pointed out a large, suspicious suitcase. Police opened it and to their amazement found a man curled up inside. With the help of an accomplice, who was also arrested, the six-foot contortionist had crammed himself inside.
His friend bought a bus ticket and put the case into the luggage hold. Once the bus set off the man in the case clambered out, opened other suitcases in the hold looking for valuables. Before the bus pulled into the stop in Barcelona he had zipped himself back into his hiding place. Police are reported to have described the crime as an ‘open and shut case’.
Two years ago Nokia went to court in the US claiming Apple had infringed its patents in areas like touch screen technology, caller ID and wi-fi. Apple then counter sued.
This settlement ends all outstanding litigation.
It appears to be a victory for Nokia as Apple has agreed to pay a lump sum and continuing royalty payments. The amounts have not been disclosed.
But the legal deal is unlikely to change anything in the market place where Nokia smart phones are struggling in face of competition from the Apple iPhone and handsets powered by Google software.
In a carefully worded statement, Apple acknowledges reaching a licensing deal with Nokia but claims it does not cover the majority of innovations that in its words make the iPhone unique.
Decoded that means Apple denies stealing the technologies that made the iPhone a success.
Nice to meet you and thanks for posting a message in this lonely thread. =]
Regards,
Aiken
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This unconventional journey into the past took the team down into an ancient sewer below the town of Herculaneum. Along with neighbouring Pompeii, it was one of the settlements buried by the Vesuvius volcanic explosion of 79AD.
In a tunnel 86 metres long, they unearthed what’s believed to be the largest deposit of human excrement ever found in the Roman world. The scientists have been able to study what foods people ate and what jobs they did, by matching the material to the buildings above, like shops and homes.
This unprecedented insight in to the diet and health of ancient Romans showed that they ate a lot of vegetables. One sample also contained a high white blood cell count, indicating, say researchers, the presence of a bacterial infection. The sewer also offered up items of pottery, a lamp and even a gold ring with a decorative gemstone. But it’s the human remains that have most astonished the archaeologists, all going to prove that where there’s muck, there’s memory.
Did you try to use a dictionary with prononciation? For example, this " merriam-webster.com/ " is a very good dictionary, in what you can introduce every word whose prononciation you are not sure. The same thing can be done using Google Translate, wich offers not only translations, but also a prononciation for the word.
In my opinion, you need to verify every word that you read; for most of them you have a good prononciation, but from time to time I noticed that you pronounce words different from their accepted forms.
This is also what I do for myself, with words I’m not sure about.
Just listening and reproducing can be triky. You have to record yourself and compare your prononciation for a word with that offered by the dictionary. Comparing them, you will realise where they are different. Repeating manny times, you will find the good one.
