NYTimes Science Times: Aiming neutrons for a hidden Leonardo; the NIH boss who means it when he prays; Amber puzzle ;The clarity born of nonsense….
John Tierney, a blogger of sharp and contrary wit most days, does a star turn for the section today with a lavishly illustrated catch-up on a project to reveal a hidden masterpiece. This has gotten fair coverage over the years: an effort to see through newer, giant epic paintings on the walls of the Venetian Palazzo Vecchio to find a long-unseen painting by Leonardo da Vinci depicting a Florentine military victory. (One such media account 2 yrs ago is here, at Wired, by Nicole Martinelli.) Documents prove it once was there. And, this story says, its locale is pretty well certified after years of preparation getting some exotic wall-penetrating detection gear ready to go. In a year or so, it says here, the location should be fully confirmed and some very careful art restorers and building trades worker may move the newer giant painting aside to see Michelangelo’s supposedly greatest unfinished work of all. This story hasn’t much science, just a lot of excellent gizmo-talk, but it helps maintain the section’s high, culture-savvy sheen. If the image up there isn’t there, that’s not some lame joke by The Tracker. I messed up the publishing hour for this post and cant’ seem to get it coordinated with the text. Click on it to see the painting.
Other notable headlines:
- Gardiner Harris: For N.I.H. Chief, Issues of Identity and Culture: Yes and still, Francis S. Colllins is a regular-guy rock music playing super scientist who also prays devoutly to a personal god who tilts events this way or that at supernatural whim or wisdom and sees no contradiction to that. Good line that Harris attributes to nobody in particular: Collins suffers therefore a mild dementia. The piece provides no reason to think Collins is, however, not a perfectly competent steward for NIH.
- Benedict Carey: How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect ; About just what it says it’s about, with a citation.
- Henry Fountain : Discovery Challenges Ideas on Plant Amber ; A brief from the Observatory roundup. It is an immediately engrossing visit, quickly over, with an arcane new puzzle in the science of fossilized resin.
- Carl Zimmer: Self-Destructive Behavior in Cells May Hold Key to a Longer Life ; This excursion through autophagy makes a good complement to all the talk of telomeres and aging and biology’s evolved strategies that came with yesterday’s Nobel in Physiology.
- And in the category of perfectly sensible self-interest: Dennis Overbye: Name That Atom Smasher ; A new machine that Fermilab needs if it is to stay vital is getting moniker help from the Times and its readers. I think the Tracker’s readers ought to pipe up on this one and let the Times know their ideas. How about recycle SSC, but for Superconducting Stimulus Collider … after the funding source?
As usual, lots more. Whole Section ;
- Charlie Petit
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