Copper is fairly easy to make, and without any fancy equipment. It can be smelted simply by digging a hole in the ground, and placing various types of copper bearing ore in stone or clay vessel and setting it down in the hole.
Working with nothing but clay and sod, a small smelting oven can be made.
So it does not surprise me archaeologists have found remnants of items which appear to have been made of copper, but were now just stains in soil, since the copper decomposed. But even so, they have found some which did not completely deteriorate. Some appear to have been useful items like drinking or cooking vessels, estimated at over two million years old, plus some newer at around fifteen thousand years old.
I was reading a book which may have explained why human remains were never found in some areas where there was obviously a heavy population. They recycled everything, including their deceased. Skin was used for leather, and the bones ground and spread in fields as fertilizer. There are even some books in the Smithsonian the covers of which were made from human skin.
Juno reached Jupiter!
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Icey
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
Incredible! I take it that these human skin- bound books were well younger than 2 million years old though! In 2013, a Jewish prayer book was found, and dated to around 840 AD. It's older than the Gutenberg Bible and the Buddhist Diamond Sultra.
As far as can be said, the very oldest actual book (discounting anything written on gold or stone tablets), are 12 leather-bound Egyptian papyrus codices. The books come from the first half of the 4th century AD. Other works from the era've been found in Scandinavia, but have parts missing.
As for the ancient batteries which've been found (the Baghdad Battery being the most famous), archeologists aren't 100% certain that they WERE batteries, but can't agree on any other use.
https://gatesofnineveh.files.wordpress. ... rawing.jpg
As far as can be said, the very oldest actual book (discounting anything written on gold or stone tablets), are 12 leather-bound Egyptian papyrus codices. The books come from the first half of the 4th century AD. Other works from the era've been found in Scandinavia, but have parts missing.
As for the ancient batteries which've been found (the Baghdad Battery being the most famous), archeologists aren't 100% certain that they WERE batteries, but can't agree on any other use.
https://gatesofnineveh.files.wordpress. ... rawing.jpg
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
Copied from the Harvard Library page
"The practice of using human skin to bind books was actually pretty popular during the 17th century. It's referred to as Anthropodermic bibliopegy and proved pretty common when it came to anatomical textbooks. Medical professionals would often use the flesh of cadavers they'd dissected during their research. Waste not, want not, I suppose."
One thing which intrigued me was ancient artifacts found that the only way the silver could have been applied to the surface was by using electroplating. This is thousands of years before the Baghdad and other batteries were found.
There are several guesses as to how they did it, and one of the most interesting is some other devices they found, which could possibly have been used. Items very similar to our electrolytic capacitors were found, along with devices which could produce static electricity. If they used the static device to charge these large capacitors, they could have provided enough current to drive the electroplating process.
It could very well have been devised by unscrupulous individuals to give the appearance of copper turned to silver in order to be sold as silver. And as soon as their scam was discovered, buyers tested silver to make sure it was not silver plated copper, and the scam faded away.
When you get right down to it, a lot of things we find commonplace today, had to have an origin somewhere. Take a bar of soap as an example. The process to make a bar of soap required the knowledge of chemicals. The oldest known soap we know about is like 2,800 years BC. But evidence of possible soap making is found thousands of years earlier, just to samples to go by, only drawings and similar tools and vessels, etc.
"The practice of using human skin to bind books was actually pretty popular during the 17th century. It's referred to as Anthropodermic bibliopegy and proved pretty common when it came to anatomical textbooks. Medical professionals would often use the flesh of cadavers they'd dissected during their research. Waste not, want not, I suppose."
One thing which intrigued me was ancient artifacts found that the only way the silver could have been applied to the surface was by using electroplating. This is thousands of years before the Baghdad and other batteries were found.
There are several guesses as to how they did it, and one of the most interesting is some other devices they found, which could possibly have been used. Items very similar to our electrolytic capacitors were found, along with devices which could produce static electricity. If they used the static device to charge these large capacitors, they could have provided enough current to drive the electroplating process.
It could very well have been devised by unscrupulous individuals to give the appearance of copper turned to silver in order to be sold as silver. And as soon as their scam was discovered, buyers tested silver to make sure it was not silver plated copper, and the scam faded away.
When you get right down to it, a lot of things we find commonplace today, had to have an origin somewhere. Take a bar of soap as an example. The process to make a bar of soap required the knowledge of chemicals. The oldest known soap we know about is like 2,800 years BC. But evidence of possible soap making is found thousands of years earlier, just to samples to go by, only drawings and similar tools and vessels, etc.
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
It seems that Juno (remember how this topic started?) hasn't been doing much since it was inserted into orbit around Jupiter. Well this coming week it's going to make the closest ever flyby with all it's instruments and sensors turned fully on. According to NASA, pictures will be published shortly after the historic event. Prepare to be amazed.
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/26/12658 ... ss-junocam
http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/26/12658 ... ss-junocam
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
Thanks for the update Yogi!
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Icey
New Pluto pics
I don't know what I was expecting, but I found this sample a bit disappointing, and not much different to what'd been posted before, except for the flare.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37259937
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37262279
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This and the following replies were merged into this topic from a duplicate post elsewhere
~forumadmin
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37259937
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37262279
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This and the following replies were merged into this topic from a duplicate post elsewhere
~forumadmin
Re: New Pluto pics
I think you should have been expecting to see pictures of JUPITER not Pluto. 
Overall things are not dramatically different than what we expected, but the detail in those pictures far exceeds anything we've seen before. It might give scientists a better picture of what is going on internally, and I think that was the whole point of the mission.
Regarding Pluto, the pictures we saw from that flyby were a first of a kind. Pluto is so tiny and so far away that not much of it's features could have been mapped previously. Both missions were very successful, but there had to be more surprises on Pluto than on Jupiter simply because of it's remoteness.
Overall things are not dramatically different than what we expected, but the detail in those pictures far exceeds anything we've seen before. It might give scientists a better picture of what is going on internally, and I think that was the whole point of the mission.
Regarding Pluto, the pictures we saw from that flyby were a first of a kind. Pluto is so tiny and so far away that not much of it's features could have been mapped previously. Both missions were very successful, but there had to be more surprises on Pluto than on Jupiter simply because of it's remoteness.
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Icey
Re: New Pluto pics
Hi Yogi.
Oh good grief, yes. It was an early-morning fuddled brain when I posted!
However, I always look forward to seeing new pics like these. I really wish I'd been born in the future when it'd be possible to go up there and see some of these things for myself.
Oh good grief, yes. It was an early-morning fuddled brain when I posted!
However, I always look forward to seeing new pics like these. I really wish I'd been born in the future when it'd be possible to go up there and see some of these things for myself.
Re: New Pluto pics
"liquid metallic hydrogen?"
I like the shots for the detail, too.
I like the shots for the detail, too.
Re: New Pluto pics
Great links Icey!
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Icey
Re: New Pluto pics
Thank you. I think what I was hoping for, were some even closer shots of Jupiter though. Maybe one day .....
Re: New Pluto pics
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
It's a mini sun after all and you don't want to be too close to that kind of furnace. Plus the magnetic storms are enough to blow out any space craft we can invent. That's why they picked a polar orbit and close but long distant shots with the camera. Apparently Jupiter is too hot to get close to.
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
Don't know if it is the heat, or the fact it might be radioactive or something like that to knock out electronics. EM pulses perhaps?
Re: Juno reached Jupiter!
I received a report Saturday night where an artist rendering was made based on the penetration sensors readings. Looks like it's not all gas as they expected, but does have a solid core after all. Next we are promised to get what the layers primarily consist of, in about another month or so.
Seems it takes a whole month between each bank of tests they can perform, probably due to the orbit Juno is using.
Seems it takes a whole month between each bank of tests they can perform, probably due to the orbit Juno is using.