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    Five Days at Memorial review: The hospital hit by Hurricane Katrina

    Based on the book by journalist Sheri Fink, this TV mini-series dramatises the shocking stories of health workers and patients whose lives are changed forever as Hurricane Katrina overwhelms a US hospital in 2005, finds Bethan Ackerley

    Humans

    10 August 2022

    By Bethan Ackerley
    Anna Pou (Vera Farmiga), front, and Karen Wynn (Adepero Oduye)Courtesy of Apple
    Five Days at Memorial
    Apple TV+
    ON 11 September 2005, 45 bodies were recovered from Memorial Medical Center, New Orleans. The hospital had been hit by Hurricane Katrina, then the most devastating storm in US history. Patients, staff and their families were stranded for five days by floodwaters. Conditions were apocalyptic. Deaths were expected.
    The aftermath brought uncomfortable revelations. Some bodies contained potentially dangerous levels of morphine and other drugs. The actions of Anna Pou, a doctor at the hospital, were … More

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    Egyptian mummy’s head discovered in Kent attic

    Feedback is our weekly column of bizarre stories, implausible advertising claims, confusing instructions and more

    Humans

    10 August 2022

    Josie Ford
    Hair-raising heirloom
    Tidying the stationery cupboard throws up many archaeological treasures, but nothing so exciting, or terrifying, as the discovery made by a gentleman sorting through his deceased brother’s attic in Kent the other day. He found a head.
    This Egyptian mummy’s remains, brought to England as a souvenir, must have been passed down the family line for several generations. You would think it might have come up in conversation now and again. But no: the discoverer, who has gifted the grisly object to Canterbury Museums and Galleries, says he knew nothing about it. A CT scan has established that … More

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    On Sonorous Seas review: What a dead whale can tell us

    When a beaked whale carcass washed up near her home, part of a mass stranding around the region, Mhairi Killin was inspired to launch an artistic challenge to the military’s impact in the area

    Humans

    10 August 2022

    By David Stock
    A “constellation” of data points showing where the dead whales washed upMhairi Killin
    On Sonorous Seas
    An exhibition led by Mhairi Killin in collaboration with others
    An Tobar, Isle of Mull, UKCloses 27 August
    SOMETIMES art and science come together to raise our awareness of a compelling issue. One such occasion is a multimedia exhibition called On Sonorous Seas, led by artist Mhairi Killin and prompted by her experience of a mass stranding of dead whales.
    At the An Tobar gallery on the Isle of Mull in the Inner Hebrides, UK, … More

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    Secrets of an ancient Chinese recipe for bronze finally deciphered

    Metal-making practices described in a 2300-year-old text called the Kaogong Ji are more sophisticated than anyone realised

    Humans

    10 August 2022

    By Jason Arunn Murugesu
    A Chinese bronze container from the fifth century BCB Christopher / Alamy
    THE missing ingredients of an ancient Chinese recipe for bronze may have been uncovered, revealing another level of sophistication in the practice of chemistry at the time.
    Kaogong Ji, a 2300-year-old text, is the oldest technical encyclopedia in the world. The book contains instructions on how to make several objects, such as metal drums, chariots and weapons. It also contains six recipes for bronze that have long puzzled researchers.
    While bronze-making wasn’t unique to China at that time, Ruiliang Liu at the British Museum in London says the style and scale of the bronzes produced there was unrivalled.Advertisement
    “We asked ourselves, how can Asian and Chinese people manage to produce so many bronzes [at that time],” says Liu.
    Bronze is typically made by combining copper and tin. The recipe mystery centres on two ingredients called jin and xi that researchers have been unable to identify. In modern Mandarin, jin means gold, but in antiquity it is believed to have referred to copper or a copper alloy. Meanwhile, xi has long been considered to refer to tin.
    But chemical analyses of bronze vessels from that time period suggest that jin and xi can’t simply be copper and tin.
    Liu and his colleagues analysed previously compiled data on the chemical composition of knife-shaped Chinese coins produced in the same era as when the recipes were recorded. By teasing out the relationships between the metals present in the coins, the researchers suggest the objects were created using pre-made alloys.
    They discovered that the higher the lead concentration in the coins, the lower the concentration of both copper and tin. The coins with the highest concentration of copper also had the highest concentration of tin. These findings suggest that lead was being mixed into an alloy of copper and tin – a bronze alloy.
    By modelling different combinations, the team determined that an 80:15:5 copper-tin-lead alloy mixed with a 50:50 copper-lead alloy in various ratios was the best match with the chemical coin data.
    These pre-made alloys are likely to be jin and xi respectively as recorded in the Kaogong Ji, says Liu. But he adds that the recipes in the book may not reflect how bronze was usually made.
    “If anything, the recipes are too specific,” he says. “The people who actually got their hands dirty probably couldn’t read or write so they wouldn’t have been able to record the recipe. I think there is a gap in knowledge between the person who wrote the recipe and the person who did the real work.”
    Jianjun Mei at the University of Cambridge isn’t totally convinced by the findings. He says these recipes shouldn’t considered accurate records of practices used at the time. “These officials [who wrote the text] might only pay attention to the most important materials, such as copper and tin, rather than all other materials,” he says. The recipes still largely work if you take jin and xi to be copper and tin, he says.
    Bronze was used in ancient China to make large vessels for religious purposes, says Jessica Rawson at the University of Oxford. “In China, they had a huge workforce and so could afford to use a very complicated system with a lot more metal than in the West,” she says.
    Journal reference: Antiquity, DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2022.81).

    More on these topics: More

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    Pink Sauce provokes social media savaging

    Feedback investigates the powerful reach of a proprietary condiment, while also looking into the chess robot that broke its opponent’s finger – and a disturbing update to the latest Sims video game

    Humans

    3 August 2022

    Josie Ford
    Dressing down
    Time for elevenses – and what could be nicer to go with this cuppa than a cucumber sandwich slathered in Miami chef Carly Pii’s proprietary Pink Sauce?
    Pii’s product launch wasn’t the smoothest, according to the Los Angeles Times. A couple of misprints on her labelling left purchasers with a 444-gram bottle that provided “444 servings”. Just how powerful is this condiment? Too powerful for some: the dragon fruit that lend the sauce its tang and lurid colour act rather like beetroot, and this distressed some unsuspecting consumers, come their next bowel movement. Pii duly adjusted her formula, … More

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    Nightmare Fuel review: The psychology that underpins horror films

    Scary movies really get under our skin, but why is this the case and how do film-makers know what will scare us? A new book has some interesting answers

    Humans

    3 August 2022

    By Elle Hunt
    Tuan Tran/getty images
    Nightmare Fuel
    Nina Nesseth
    Tor Nightfire
    I HAVE friends who are so afraid of sharks that they won’t swim in the sea – no matter how enclosed the harbour, or full the beach. When I went cage diving with great whites last year, they were appalled. Yet at the same time, I noticed, they couldn’t wait to see the footage.
    This illustrates the idiosyncratic and inexplicable nature of fear. While our desires tend to run along consistent lines – love, happiness, health and wealth – what frightens us is often intensely personal and even perverse.
    So how do film-makers petrify their audiences? And … More

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    Don't Miss: Nope, a chilling new sci-fi thriller from Jordan Peele

    Universal Pictures
    Watch
    Nope is Jordan Peele’s latest chiller featuring Daniel Kaluuya (above) who starred in his earlier film Get Out. Ranch owners spot something in the Californian sky. They will wish it was the cloud it resembles. UK cinemas from 12 August.
    Read
    Methuselah’s Zoo is by animal longevity specialist Steven Austad, who asks what we can learn from long-living animals such as centuries-old sharks and tube worms. It is best to study them in the wild, says Austad. On sale 16 August.

    Visit
    Neofossils are plastics made from biomass that could sequester a … More

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    Explorer review: The amazing story of adventurer Ranulph Fiennes

    An intriguing documentary about the life and adventures of Ranulph Fiennes, one of the last hero-explorers of our time, packs an altogether different punch at the end, discovers Simon Ings

    Humans

    3 August 2022

    By Simon Ings

    Ranulph Fiennes: his expeditions were the last of their kindRoyal Geographical Society/Alamy
    Explorer
    Matthew Dyas
    On release now

    EXPLORER is a documentary about Ranulph Fiennes, who led the first expedition to circumnavigate Earth from pole to pole without recourse to flight.
    Its subject emerges slowly from snatches of past documentaries, interviews, home movies and headlines. The film touts Fiennes’s unknowability: a risky strategy for those new to the man and his achievements, though in time it pays off handsomely for director Matthew Dyas.
    Fiennes isn’t motivated by mysterious and delicate internal forces; this … More