Neat Stuff

The Miracle at Herculaneum

The two links which still work tell the story as it was when I first read about it. It was believed possible that, as a "classics professor David Armstrong of the University of Texas-Austin said 'If you were going to recover all the lost literary works of antiquity in one place, this is your best chance.'" A large private library which had been buried during the Vesuvius eruptions of 79AD had been discovered with its ancient papyri in dire shape but which might be recoverable. Of course, the Internet is not quite so permanent and two of the original stories are gone. The original two still left are here linked to below and Wikipedia has more up to date information on the Villa of the Papyri.

• Tim Cornwell, "Experts urge race against time to unearth last secrets of Herculaneum’s lost library"
  The Scotsman, March 27, 2002
  "In cultural terms...this is about as important as it gets."
  http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/international.cfm?id=332482002
• Robert Harris, "Ancient Roman villa may hold world's richest literary treasure"
  The Age (theage.com.au), April 2, 2002 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/04/01/1017206183365.html

The Earth at Night

• From NASA: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0011/earthlights_dmsp_big.jpg

Space pictures

• SOHO
• Spaceweather
• The Blue Marble
• NASA photo gallery
• Mars