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Museum of Lost Objects: The Winged Bull of Nineveh

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One year ago a man took a pneumatic drill to the statue of a winged bull at the gates of the ancient city of Nineveh, near Mosul in modern Iraq. It's one of countless treasures destroyed by vandals, militants or military action in the region in the past 15 years. This is the first of 10 stories about ancient objects that have now been lost.
The winged bull had the head of a man, the wings of an eagle, and the hulking body of a bull. Known as a Lamassu, other examples had the body of a lion. It was a composite of the most powerful and ferocious creatures known in the region, and this particular sculpture was huge - about 4.5m high, and up to 30 tonnes in weight.
It stood at one of the many gates along Nineveh's city walls, as a protective spirit and a symbol of the power of the Assyrian king.
"They're very intimidating. Those faces look quite daunting, the wings, the hooves, and the combined creature of many different animals that's very large and menacing-looking. It does strike you a little bit with fear which I suppose is part of the reason for these things," says Mark Altaweel, an Iraqi-American archaeologist.
At the same time, amid its mass of curly hair and its tumbling beard, the Lamassu does have a kind of tight-lipped smile. It is stern, but in its own way welcoming.
It was hewn from a single slab of limestone about 2,700 years ago, in the reign of the Assyrian King Sennacherib, ruler of an empire covering parts of modern Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Nineveh, Sennacherib's capital "would have been the city of cities", says Altaweel. "The largest city anywhere on Earth, probably, by the time it reaches its peak in the 7th Century BC. All roads would have literally led to Nineveh."
"They're very intimidating. Those faces look quite daunting, the wings, the hooves, and the combined creature of many different animals that's very large and menacing-looking. It does strike you a little bit with fear which I suppose is part of the reason for these things," says Mark Altaweel, an Iraqi-American archaeologist.
At the same time, amid its mass of curly hair and its tumbling beard, the Lamassu does have a kind of tight-lipped smile. It is stern, but in its own way welcoming.
It was hewn from a single slab of limestone about 2,700 years ago, in the reign of the Assyrian King Sennacherib, ruler of an empire covering parts of modern Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.
Nineveh, Sennacherib's capital "would have been the city of cities", says Altaweel. "The largest city anywhere on Earth, probably, by the time it reaches its peak in the 7th Century BC. All roads would have literally led to Nineveh."
A Lamassu sculpture photographed in
1906 at Nimrud, near Nineveh
"Wide spreading wings rose above their backs, and their breasts and bodies were profusely adorned with curled hair," he wrote in 1853.
"Behind them were colossal winged figures of the same height, bearing the pine cone and basket. Their faces were in full, and the relief was high and bold. More knowledge of art was shown in the outline of the limbs and in the delineation of the muscles than in any sculpture I have seen of this period. The naked leg and foot were designed with a spirit and truthfulness worthy of a Greek artist."

Olm eggs: Tense wait for baby Slovenian 'dragons'

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In a Slovenian cave visited by a million tourists every year, a bizarre and rare amphibian is guarding a significant clutch of eggs.
The olm, a blind salamander found in cave rivers of the Balkans, is thought to live for more than 100 years but reproduces just once or twice a decade.
A female in an aquarium at the Postojna Cave has laid 50-60 eggs - and three of them are now showing signs of growth.
Nobody knows how many will hatch, or even precisely how long it will take.
"Right now it looks like three are good candidates," Saso Weldt, a biologist working at the cave, told the BBC.

He and his colleagues have taken very long-exposure photographs in the darkened cave, in order to glimpse evidence of the tiny embryos developing.
"She started laying eggs on 30 January. She is still laying one or two eggs per day, and they need something like 120 days till they hatch."
'Quite extraordinary'
That is an uncertain estimate, he explained, based on a colony of olms that was established in the 1950s in an underground lab in the French Pyrenees. There, they live in slightly warmer water, at 11C.
"In our cave, it is slightly cooler, 9C, so everything will be prolonged."
It is a unique opportunity to observe the enigmatic olm - also known as the proteus - reproducing in the same caves where it has lived for millions of years.

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How Living With Someone Makes Your Immune Systems Eerily Similar

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When you live with someone, it turns out that it can be way more intimate than just sharing space -- you can also end up having similar immune systems.

A new study, published in the journal Nature Immunology last week, suggests that the cellular composition of our immune systems is partly shaped by who we live with as well as our age.

The research marks the first time that the immune systems of two unrelated individuals in a close relationship have been closely analyzed and compared, said Dr. Adrian Liston, a researcher at the Flanders Institute for Biotechnology in Belgium and a co-author of the study.

"We already knew that environmental factors can impact the immune system, so in that regard it should not be a surprise that people with similar environments have similar immune systems," Liston told The Huffington Post. "But what was really surprising was the strength of the effect."

For the study, the researchers monitored and analyzed the immune systems of about 670 people, ranging in age from 2 to 86, over a three-year period.

The researchers collected blood samples from each person and took a close look at the immune cells in each sample, New Scientist reported.

After assessing each person's age, gender and weight, the researchers discovered that the individuals who lived together had surprisingly similar cellular compositions in their immune systems.

"We know multiple environmental factors can change the immune system – diet, alcohol, smoking, exercise, pollution, stress – and lot of these factors will be shared in couples," Liston said.

Furthermore, couples who lived together and shared a child had 50 percent more similar immune systems than seen in the wider population.

"The effect of cohabitation with a child was a more powerful influence on the immune system than 40 years of aging!" Liston said.

Liston said another factor that had a strong impact on the similarity of immune systems is the bacteria living in our guts.

"We don’t live in a sterile environment, so just living together means that we will have similar bacteria in our guts, again pushing our immune systems into a similar status," he said. "Then if you are in a relationship, things will be even more similar. 80 million bacteria are transferred in a single kiss."
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Scientists Say: Your weekly word

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Scientists Say (noun, “SIGH-en-tists Sae”)

This is a weekly feature from our science inspiration blog, Eureka! Lab. Every week, science education writer Bethany Brookshire highlights a new science word, from allele to zoonosis. Each word has a definition and is used in a sentence to help you understand the meaning. There’s even an audio recording, so you can hear exactly how to pronounce the term. All the words covered so far are listed below. Got a word you want to know about? Tweet to @eureka_labs and put in a request!

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

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New football helmets could limit brain injuries

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Two football players collide on the field. Both are wearing helmets. Still, their heads bang together, risking serious injury. A new helmet design might offer these players’ brains much better protection. Key to its advantage: three layers of energy-absorbing insulation. Most helmets today offer just a single layer.

“Current helmets do a good job of reducing the force that gets to the skull,” says Ellen Arruda. She’s a mechanical engineer at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. But reducing force isn’t the only problem. A blow to the head sends waves of kinetic (Ki-NET-ik) energy through the skull and into the brain. Kinetic energy is the energy of motion.

“Let’s imagine you have an egg and you hit the egg,” explains Michael Thouless, also a mechanical engineer at Michigan. Hitting the egg could crack its shell. But the impulse of kinetic energy might also send the egg flying.

Something similar happens when an athlete’s head gets hit. Even if the skull doesn’t crack, an impulse of energy travels through the skull and brain. But the brain and skull don’t always move at the same speed. So parts of the brain can crash against the inside of the skull.

Bike helmets are made to crush, or deform, on impact. That action absorbs a good deal of the kinetic energy. Afterward, however, the helmet must be thrown out. That’s not practical for football and other contact sports. And helmets for those sports do a poor job of cutting down on that kinetic energy, says Arruda.


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11,000-year-old pendant with etched design found in England

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ENGRAVED SAVE  An etched design on an 11,000-year-old pendant discovered last year is one of the oldest examples of art in England. The pendant might have belonged to a shaman, researchers say.
One of England’s oldest artworks turned up last year on a tiny piece of stone.

An engraved shale pendant unearthed at Star Carr, a site under excavation since 1947, dates to around 11,000 years ago, a time when Britons were transitioning from foragers to farmers, researchers report online February 25 in Internet Archaeology. The pendant, roughly the size and shape of a guitar pick, includes a carefully fashioned hole through which it may have been strung, say archaeologist Nicky Milner of the University of York and her colleagues.

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