Latin American Science
September 2, 2009 5:02 PM Subscribe
History of Science in Latin America and the Caribbean [flash required] – the history of science from a Latin American perspective.
As a non-Latin non-a non-scientist (but, yeah, okay, in the U.S.), I find this very interesting.
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:06 PM on September 2, 2009
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:06 PM on September 2, 2009
Trepanation! Eugenics! Prostitution!
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:14 PM on September 2, 2009
posted by Rat Spatula at 9:14 PM on September 2, 2009
As a Latino, non scientist in the U.S., I also find this very interesting...
posted by CRESTA at 9:40 PM on September 2, 2009
posted by CRESTA at 9:40 PM on September 2, 2009
I saw Breaking the Maya Code at a film festival earlier this year. It's excellent.
Breaking the Maya Code is the story of the 200-year struggle to unlock the secrets of the world's last major undeciphered writing system. Based on archaeologist and historian Michael Coe's book of the same title (which The New York Times called "one of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery") and filmed in over 40 locations in nine countries, this amazing detective story is filled with false leads, rivalries and colliding personalities. It leads us from the jungles of Guatemala to the bitter cold of Russia, from ancient Maya temples to the dusty libraries of Dresden and Madrid.
The heroes of the story are an extraordinary and diverse group of men and women: an English photographer, a German librarian, a Russian soldier, a California newspaperman, an art teacher from Tennessee, and an 18-year-old boy immersed in the glyphs since early childhood. Surprisingly, the decipherment reveals not peaceful kingdoms but warring citystates in a long struggle for domination. The texts also reveal a strange world of kings and queens who regularly shed and burned their blood to invoke the Vision Serpent, a world shaped by an intricate cosmology that weaves together the lives of humans, the deeds of mythic heroes and the cycles of the planets and the stars.
posted by neuron at 9:50 PM on September 2, 2009
Breaking the Maya Code is the story of the 200-year struggle to unlock the secrets of the world's last major undeciphered writing system. Based on archaeologist and historian Michael Coe's book of the same title (which The New York Times called "one of the great stories of twentieth century scientific discovery") and filmed in over 40 locations in nine countries, this amazing detective story is filled with false leads, rivalries and colliding personalities. It leads us from the jungles of Guatemala to the bitter cold of Russia, from ancient Maya temples to the dusty libraries of Dresden and Madrid.
The heroes of the story are an extraordinary and diverse group of men and women: an English photographer, a German librarian, a Russian soldier, a California newspaperman, an art teacher from Tennessee, and an 18-year-old boy immersed in the glyphs since early childhood. Surprisingly, the decipherment reveals not peaceful kingdoms but warring citystates in a long struggle for domination. The texts also reveal a strange world of kings and queens who regularly shed and burned their blood to invoke the Vision Serpent, a world shaped by an intricate cosmology that weaves together the lives of humans, the deeds of mythic heroes and the cycles of the planets and the stars.
posted by neuron at 9:50 PM on September 2, 2009
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posted by sotalia at 7:09 PM on September 2, 2009