Notre Dame de Paris prepares to celebrate 850 years since its first foundation stone was laid in 1163.
Dozens of Jews who claim to be the descendants of a lost biblical Jewish tribe emigrated to Israel on Monday from their village in northeastern India. … The Bnei Menashe say they are descended from Jews banished from ancient Israel to India in the eighth century BC. An Israeli chief rabbi recognized them as a lost tribe in 2005, and about 1,700 moved to Israel over the next two years before the government stopped giving them visas. Israel recently reversed that policy, agreeing to let the remaining 7,200 Bnei Menashe immigrate.
Rape protests in India claim their own victim. A 47-year-old Delhi Police Constable, who suffered serious injuries during violent protests at India Gate on Sunday, died on Tuesday after battling for life in a city hospital.
Piers Morgan – he of telephone hacking fame – is for once on the right side of the argument but has angered the NRA and other gun-lovers.
While more than 600 people have died in the European freeze, the Bayern region is basking in warm weather and the city of Munich enjoyed over 20°C on Christmas Eve.
Since language is merely a tool for communication and develops and evolves entirely in response to the need to communicate, most attempts to invent new languages for human use fail because they cannot accurately predict or define the required needs. This is in contrast to the invention of machine languages where the needs can be much better defined. But this fascinating story of Ithkuil – an invented language – shows what a dedicated individual acan achieve even without formal academic credentials. And this piece about New York as the graveyard of languages which misses the point that languages die simply when they no longer fulfill the need for communication or are superceded by another which does.
“How is it that elves can see further than humans? Are hobbits evolutionarily related to humans? And so on. My mind raced ahead of the inquiries, so that I found myself asking (and answering) such questions as – how could dragons breathe fire? What would life be like for a walking tree? How do all those elves live beautiful, healthy lives without any obvious means of support?” On the science of Middle Earth.
Mobile phones on aircraft have no impact on aircraft operation. “The truth is that the FCC never was concerned about the possibility of electronic interference when, in 1991, it banned the use of mobile phones on board aircraft. All it was really worried about was their impact on cellular networks on the ground”.
Svante Paabo’s work on the Neanderthal genome is to be covered in a documentary.
British People Problems and 10 Reasons British Comedy Is Better Than American Comedy
Tags: Noted in passing
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