Scent of
a Woman
Two
thousand years after her death, Cleopatra's famously irresistible fragrances
are available again. In the late 1980s, a team of Italian and Israeli
archaeologists excavated a perfume factory, which dates back to Cleopatra's
reign, 30 miles south of the Dead Sea. Among other things, the archaeologists
found grinding wheels and vials containing dried pollens. Inspired by these
findings as well as by ancient perfume recipes preserved in the writings of
Pliny the Elder, a fragrance expert in Florida, Irene Saltzman, has re-created
four historic
scents for popular use. Saltzman insists her recipes are as authentic as
possible. She uses no alcohol or water and imports many of her ingredients from
the Middle East. The perfumes are available for $22 each.
More
Archaeological Updates
The
Italian city of Pompeii, destroyed by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79, faces
further destruction, this time from tourism. The Chicago Tribune reports
that the site, which attracts 2 million visitors a year, suffers from extensive
vandalism, theft, and chronic funding shortages, as well as from pedestrian
wear and tear. Only 17 of the nearly 800 excavated villas are currently open to
the public. The Italian government is considering various preservation
measures, including corporate sponsorship of individual villas on the site.
Fiat, the Italian automobile manufacturer, is interested, but scholars oppose
the idea of "privatizing" the national heritage. ... Archaeologists
digging under the ruins of the residential palace of Roman tyrant Nero earlier
this month stumbled on an astonishing find: a 10-foot-by-6-foot fresco, faded
but almost completely intact. The mural appears to be an aerial view of Rome as
it looked before the Great Fire of A.D. 64, which the megalomaniacal Nero is
believed to have set himself.
Scratch
'n' Sniff
Doctors
have developed a smell test for insanity. It has long been known that the
breath and body odors of patients suffering from serious mental disorders are
distinctive, but now researchers have developed a skin-sweat test for
schizophrenia and are working on a breath test. The creators of the test are a
group of clinicians at the Highland Psychiatric Research Group in Inverness,
Scotland, working alongside sniff-science pioneer Dr. George Dodd, who founded
an institute for olfactory research in the 1970s. It was Dodd who helped to
develop the first generation of electronic noses, which produce electric
signals in the presence of various molecular compounds. Dodd is optimistic that
smell tests could become a front-line diagnostic tool. Eventually, he says, the
electronic nose could diagnose patients over the telephone.
An Affair
to Remember
Presidential friend and White House sex-scandal witness Vernon Jordan has
chosen a sometime historian of presidential sexuality to help him write his
memoirs. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education , Jordan's
collaborator will be legal scholar Annette Gordon-Reed, an untenured professor
at New York University's law school, who swept to prominence last year with the
publication of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American
Controversy . Hailed as the definitive account of Jefferson's long-rumored
love affair with the slave Sally Hemings, Gordon-Reed's book argues that
historians should give credence to the story of Jefferson's mistress and their
six children. (For
Slate
's take on Gordon-Reed's book, click
here.)
And if
You Believe That ...
Several
con-artist schemes have emerged in academia. One scam, reported in the
Chronicle of Higher Education last month, involves a man posing as a
director of the Saudi-based Islamic Development Bank or as a professor at a
Saudi university. He telephones American scholars and invites them to a
conference in Saudi Arabia. Soon, the invitees are being asked to wire money to
a courier claiming to be on his way to America to deliver the conference
invitations. This man claims that he has been robbed en route and is stranded
without money or his plane ticket in an airport somewhere in Europe or the
Middle East. Moved by this plea for help, the duped scholar promptly wires the
individual a loan of as much as $3,700. After learning that one of its members
had been taken in by the scheme, the Middle East Studies Association posted a
warning on its Web site. ... Another scheme, reported by the
Chronicle last May, was the case of a fast-talking ex-convict who
convinced dozens of professors that he was the nephew of esteemed Berkeley race
and sports sociologist Harry Edwards. Among those fooled by the Six Degrees
of Separation -style setup was Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson,
who lost $175.
Deleuze
for Dodo Birds
High French theory has
finally conquered the children's book market. In 1988, postmodernist
Jean-François Lyotard published Le Postmoderne expliqué aux enfants
( Postmodernism Explained to Children ), and the book became a must-read
for graduate students everywhere.
A
children's book was recently published in France based on excerpts from the
works of the even trendier and more arcane Gilles Deleuze, the late French philosopher and celebrated author
of Anti-Oedipus . The author is Jacqueline Duhême, a former model for
Henri Matisse and pal of Paul Eluard, Pablo Picasso, and Raymond Queneau.
Duhême, who today makes her living as a graphic designer and illustrator, calls
her book (in French) The Bird of Philosophy . The title was inspired by
one of Deleuze's cryptic musings: "Don't you think that philosophy is as pretty
as a bird's name?"
Trojan
Virus
The
deadly Ebola virus may turn out to have a medical use, according to a recent
article in Science . A team of virologists at the University of Michigan
Medical Center in Ann Arbor has reportedly identified Ebola's molecular attack
strategy and is hoping to exploit it to battle heart disease and cancer. The
virus insinuates itself into its victims' bloodstreams by using a glycoprotein
(a protein with sugars attached to it) to disable the host's immune response
and blood vessels. The researchers would like to affix the Ebola glycoprotein
to a harmless virus carrying therapeutic-drug or genetic cocktails.
Rain
Forest Crunch
Classical
musicians may be contributing to the despoliation of the rain forests.
According to Richard F. Fisher, a forest scientist at Texas A&M University,
a growing demand for flutes, clarinets, and oboes made of rare tropical wood,
including the endangered M'Pingo, grenadilla, and rosewood, is wreaking havoc
on the African and South American tropics. Fisher explains the dangers in this
month's Scientific American: Harvesters clear-cut wide swaths of forest
to reach the remote regions where the species grow. This encourages peasants to
move in and begin farming the land. Moreover, the prized trees take 60 years to
reach maturity and have proved resistant to plantation cultivation. One
enterprising instrument maker, Boosey & Hawkes, has devised a way to deal
with the problem: Make the precious wood stretch further. The company's
environmentally sensitive oboes and clarinets contain a Hamburger Helper-style
mixture of M'Pingo sawdust, carbon fiber, and epoxy glue.
