Month: June 2023

Enlarge / (left) Skull of teenage girl from 7th century CE. (right) Facial reconstruction as she might have looked in life. (credit: University of Cambridge Archaeological Unit/Hew Morrison ©2023)

Earlier this week, archaeologists unveiled the facial reconstruction of the remains of a 7th-century CE Anglo-Saxon teenage girl found in a rare "bed burial" back in 2012. It's part of a new exhibit at the University of Cambridge's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology called "Beneath Our Feet: Archaeology of the Cambridge Region." In addition to the reconstruction, scientists also analyzed the young woman's bones and teeth to learn more about her diet and geographical region of origin.

The girl is believed to have been about 16 years old when she died. The grave was discovered at a site near a village called Trumpington just outside Cambridge. It is one of only 18 so-called "bed burials"—a rare Anglo-Saxon practice, usually reserved for high-status women, in which the deceased was buried on an ornamental bed—discovered thus far in the United Kingdom. Nearby were three other graves holding two younger women and an older person. This particular bed had a wooden frame held together by metal brackets and looped metal to fix the cross-slats, most likely topped with a straw mattress.

Among the grave goods buried with the girl were an iron knife, a chatelaine (decorative belt), glass beads, gold and garnet pins, and most significantly, an ornate gold pectoral cross inlaid with garnets, now known as the Trumpington Cross. Archaeologists believe it may have been sewn onto the robe she was wearing when she died. Such crosses are very rare, and its presence indicated the young woman was likely a member of Anglo-Saxon nobility, particularly when combined with the evidence of the bed burial. The cross indicates she was a Christian, but the grave goods are a pagan practice, so archaeologists view the find as representative of a pivotal period in British history when Christianity had just begun to spread through the land.

Enlarge / This illustration shows a concept for a proposed NASA Sample Retrieval Lander, about the size of an average two-car garage, that would carry a small rocket called the Mars Ascent Vehicle to the Martian surface. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

During his final months as the chief of NASA's science programs last year, there was one mission Thomas Zurbuchen fretted about more than any other—the agency's ambitious plan to return rocks from Mars to Earth. He supported the Mars Sample Return mission and helped get it moving through the agency's approval process. But the project threatened to devour the agency's science budget.

"This was the thing that gave me sleepless nights toward the end of my tenure at NASA and even after I left," said Zurbuchen, who left NASA after seven years leading its Science Mission Directorate at the end of 2022. "I think there's a crisis going on."

Now, Ars has learned, the problem may be even worse that Zurbuchen imagined.

Enlarge / The hinge awkwardly breaking up content on Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i. (credit: Scharon Harding)

Dual-screen laptops have been around for enough years that Asus now has a lineup of them. But Lenovo's Yoga Book 9 is the dual-screen option for maximum screen space. Open the 2-in-1 laptop, and you'll find two 13.3-inch, 16:10 OLED touchscreens in lieu of any integrated keyboard, touchpad, or traditional deck.

The machine looks striking. But once you're past the initial intrigue, you might ask yourself: Why would I want this? Well—you might not. This is an unusual laptop built for unique needs. While our review will explain how it works—and its undesirable quirks—many might find its design inconvenient.

But for some, the laptop opens possibilities in ways new laptops rarely do. It can make your portable monitor redundant, and it sports a crease-free look that foldables can only dream of at this point. Lenovo's dual-screen laptop could influence future products for the better. For now, the laptop's a refreshingly realistic option for people who want more screen real estate without giving up more space.

Enlarge / The hinge awkwardly breaking up content on Lenovo's Yoga Book 9i. (credit: Scharon Harding)

Dual-screen laptops have been around for enough years that Asus now has a lineup of them. But Lenovo's Yoga Book 9 is the dual-screen option for maximum screen space. Open the 2-in-1 laptop, and you'll find two 13.3-inch, 16:10 OLED touchscreens in lieu of any integrated keyboard, touchpad, or traditional deck.

The machine looks striking. But once you're past the initial intrigue, you might ask yourself: Why would I want this? Well—you might not. This is an unusual laptop built for unique needs. While our review will explain how it works—and its undesirable quirks—many might find its design inconvenient.

But for some, the laptop opens possibilities in ways new laptops rarely do. It can make your portable monitor redundant, and it sports a crease-free look that foldables can only dream of at this point. Lenovo's dual-screen laptop could influence future products for the better. For now, the laptop's a refreshingly realistic option for people who want more screen real estate without giving up more space.

Enlarge (credit: NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island)

Was that surprisingly fast or excruciatingly slow? The search to discover the fate of the Titan submersible took place against a backdrop of hopes for survival and dwindling oxygen supplies. Given that, the time it took to confirm the fate of those on board may have seemed excruciatingly slow.

At the same time, the extreme depths of the Titanic's wreck posed a lot of challenges, and it's extremely difficult to find anything on the ocean's bottom if you don't know exactly where to look. Given that, the successful conclusion of the search can be viewed as happening remarkably quickly.

A complex site

One of the factors that took time was simply getting the right hardware to the right location. There aren't a lot of remotely operated vehicles that are built to withstand the pressures found at over 3,500 meters deep in the ocean. Not all of those vehicles will have the right equipment to handle the search, and some of the ones that do will be in use elsewhere. Any equipment that was appropriate and available would then have to get sent to Canada, put on board an appropriate vessel, and then taken several hundred miles off the coast to the site of the Titanic. And then it would have to descend to the wreck site.