Open access HunDReDs of scientific papers reporting on Teagasc research are now available to everyone free online. Teagasc reports that almost 300 papers have been uploaded providing a picture of agricultural research from 2012 onwards.
was the way to deliver on that promise, and maybe that should give us pause for thought. As the author observes, we should not rely on the technology that gave rise to the problems in the first place to provide us with the solutions. Yet, what we are getting is often just more of the same linear type solutioneering, and I can’ t help but wonder why the chosen solution for Dublin’ s growing volume of sewage is to pump the treated waste further out into the bay. I understand that recovery of nutrients would have been a much more expensive alternative, but it does seem to suggest that all local authorities are firmly locked into systems that have no future.
Interestingly, the city systems that we have inherited did not begin as sewers at all. It is true that the Victorian engineers made an enormous impact on public health by bringing in clean water and removing sewage, but way back in 600 BC the famous Cloaca Maxima in Rome was designed, not for sewage, but to carry away rainwater. The author informs
us that in most european cities sewers were not sewers at all, and it is only when a rising population made backyard cesspits overflow that permission was granted to allow them to discharge into the public system. That’ s only half the story, because it was the availability of piped water that caused so many of the cesspits to overflow.
The author has lots more to say about a subject that whether or not we like it, we do have to learn how to live with it.
Review, Tom Kennedy
The origin of feces, David Waltner-Toews. ECW, June 2013. 220 pages, paperback. £ 12.99
Open access HunDReDs of scientific papers reporting on Teagasc research are now available to everyone free online. Teagasc reports that almost 300 papers have been uploaded providing a picture of agricultural research from 2012 onwards.
Traditionally it would only have been possible to read published articles after paying a subscription, and for many journals these charges put the information out of reach to most people.
The Teagasc Open Access repository has been named stór, a direct translation into Irish. For more information: http:// t-stor. teagasc. ie
COLOUR
INK
M
anuscripts can often be traced back to a particular monastery through an analysis of the inks used by the scribes.
For writing a wide variety of substances have been found to meet the basic requirements; freedom of flow, clarity, and a high degree of permanency. Boiled tree bark, the black mush produced by ink-cap mushrooms, blue from cornflowers, powdered root of the yellow flag iris, and even strong coffee have been used. A black ink was made from the winter blackened bark of blackthorn twigs mixed with milk or glue. One common type of ink was made from oak galls, the round balls formed by insects on oak trees. One formula for preparation was five pounds of iron sulphate, five pounds of gum, 12 gallons of water, and measuring by volume, 12 gallon of oak galls.
Collecting enough oak galls for 12 gallons must have been difficult but it just shows how big the demand for ink was. On an even more extensive scale Indian ink was made from lampblack and gum, and producing fine grained soot became a big, although very dirty industry in parts of south eastern Europe. The soot, lampblack, was mixed with linseed to make printers’ ink.
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The quality of medieval inks had to be high for manuscripts such as this to survive. This is a page from a medical manuscript, the Book of the
O’ Lees, preserved at the Royal Irish Academy.
The colour wheel gives a good idea of how colours relate to each other. By subtracting the colour from one side of the wheel we get the opposite hue.
Colour has hue, saturation, and brightness, and three dimensional modelling, although harder to visualise, led to more accurate systems of classification.
The science and art of colour explained by Margaret Franklin and Tom Kennedy. A colourful and informative paperback. € 15 post free from www. sciencespin. com
Carboniferous plants A. Palaeopteris hibernicus, from Kiltorcan, Co Kilkenny. B. Alethopteris loachitica, Ballynstick, Co Tipperary. C. Alethopteris lonchilides, from Drumnagh colliery, Co Cork. D. Root of Lepidodendron, Towerstown, Co Laois.
Photographs: Tom Kennedy.
Vegetation covered schist lying up against a granite cliff above Lough Oular, Co Wicklow.
event. The exception is the Mourne Granite which is only 55 million years old and it developed during initial opening of the Atlantic Ocean, possibly due to the melting of the Earth’ s crust by the ascending Antrim basalts( see“ Basalts and other Volcanic Rocks” earlier).
The generation of hot molten granite in the base of the Earth’ s crust is driven by the movement of plates: where they collide, the over-ridden crustal plate sinks to a depth where it melts to form liquid granite( see Figure 3). Where those plates pull apart they release extremely hot basalt from the mantle which in turn melts the crust it
Figure 15. Ireland is well-endowed with granite rocks. The granite of the Mourne Mountains is the northeast stands out from the others in being significantly younger— only 55 million years old.
ROCK AROUND IRELAND
Peadar McArdle guides us around Ireland’ s diversified geology. Paperback € 15 postfree from www. sciencespin. com
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Gold Frenzy
SCIENCE SPIN Issue 58 Page 32