Our galaxy is a highly evolved entity. Not merely a random assortment of stars, like so many grains of sand on a beach, it is an elegant structure that shows both order and complexity. We know that the Milky Way is a spiral disk galaxy, similar to many others we see in the sky. This surprisingly beautiful shape is so common among galaxies that the universe almost seems to delight in building th...

I 'N THE PAPER I wrote twenty years ago on the origins of British breeds of sheep, I .attempted to integrate new evidence from archaeology with older documentary evidence.' Medieval archaeology was in its infancy, and the bone remains from sheep gave little information. Illustrations in illuminated manuscripts and later paintings gave better evidence than records. But the most striking new and ...

Huntington's disease (HD) is thought to be due to genetically-programmed degeneration of neurons in certain areas of the brain. This degeneration causes uncontrolled movements, loss of intellectual faculties, and emotional disturbances. It is along time since the disease started tormenting human beings, and to date, conventional medications have failed to slow down the progression of HD. ...

abū l-ḥasan alī ibn al-‘abbās al-majūsī ahvazi (? 930-994 ad), best known as haly abbas in the west, was a 10th century persian physician whose lifetime coincided with the flourishing of medical science in the near east, the islamic medicine golden age, an era extending from the 9th to the 12th centuries ad. haly abbas, in his extant book kāmil al-sinā‘ah al-tibbīyah (the perfect book of the ar...