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N22/851 от 06.10.2016 e-mail: info@gorizont.com Simply the best
20
report, the researchers wrote in the
study, published today (June 6) in
the journal The Lancet Diabetes &
Endocrinology.
The researchers found that after
five years, the people in the olive
oil group had lost a small but
statistically significant amount of
weight, compared to the control
group: The people in the olive oil
group lost about 1 lb. (0.4 kilograms)
more, on average, than
those in the control group.
The people in the nut group
also lost a small amount of
weight as well, compared to the
control group. However, the
difference between the olive oil
group and the nut group was not
statistically significant (meaning
it could have been due to
chance).
In addition, both the olive
oil and nut groups experienced
slight reductions in their waist
circumferences compared to the
control group, according to the
study.
The key finding is that neither
diet, although rich in fats, led to
weight gain or increases in waist
circumference, Estruch told Live
Science.
The researchers noted that
although the participants in the
olive oil and nut groups were not
instructed to limit their calorie
intake, the people in both groups
did end up consuming fewer
calories on average than they
had consumed before the study
started. This may have been due
to the filling effects of fat, the researchers
wrote in their study.
Maintaining a certain body
weight requires balancing the
calories you consume versus the
calories you burn, but it seems
that calories from vegetable fats
have different effects on weight
than calories from animal fats,
Estruch said.
Though the participants in
the study were overweight or
obese older adults, Estruch said
that he believes that the benefits
of the Mediterranean diet on
weight and waist circumference
could extend to people of any
age and weight, including young
men and women.
This is not the first study to
suggest that eating more plantbased
fats does not lead to a larger
waistline.
The results of this study are
consistent with a range of observational
studies suggesting that
eating more fat is not linked to a
change in people’s weights, said
Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist
and the dean of the Friedman
School of Nutrition Science
and Policy at Tufts University,
Surprising Echo of Ancient Irish Horns in Indian Instruments
who was not involved in the new
study. Mozaffarian wrote an editorial
that was published alongside
the study in the journal.
People should focus more on
eating healthy foods, rather than
worrying about dietary fats, Mozaffarian
told Live Science.
The new study may in fact have
underestimated the health benefits
of the Mediterranean diet,
Mozaffarian added. Because the
study took place in Spain, where
people already eat a Mediterranean-style
diet, there may not
have been as big a change in eating
patterns as there would have
been if people had shifted from an
American-style diet, for example,
he said.
By Greg Uyeno
It was a musical link to the
past hidden in plain sight: Some
modern horns played in India
and neighboring regions bear a
striking resemblance to ancient
Irish instruments that date back
to Europe’s Bronze and Iron Ages,
according to a new study.
The comparisons suggest
sustained cultural exchange between
the two regions, and could
help researchers to understand
the origins of some Indian instruments
and to reconstruct the
sounds of ancient Irish music.
«Some horns are frankly shockingly
similar, to the point where
it is like witnessing time travel,»
study author Billy ? Foghl? told
Live Science in an email. ? Foghl?
is an archaeologist and Ph.D. student
at the Australian National
University in Canberra. «If I were
to find one of these modern Indian
instruments in an Irish archaeological
excavation and I
didn’t know what I was looking at,
I would likely assume it was a Late
Bronze Age Irish artifact.»
In a new study published in
April in the Journal of Indian
Ocean Archaeology, ? Foghl?
compared ancient horns from
around Europe with modern
South Indian counterparts. He
focused on the version of what is
called a kompu from Kerala, India:
a large, C-shaped horn cast
in bronze with a high tin content.
It is similar to Late Bronze
Age horns from Ireland and
Scandinavia in form, materials
and, likely, production process, ?
Foghl? said.
He also noted that other types
of horns found in India are «almost
identical» to instruments
from other parts of Irish history.
? Foghl? said he was inspired
to investigate this musical connection
after he saw an image
from the exterior of a Buddhist
monument. The carving depicts
two musicians playing the
carnyx, a distinctive bronze Irish
horn in the form of an animal
King Tut’s Blade Made of Meteorite
head. Known as the Great Stupa,
the monument is located at Sanchi
in central India and is more
than 2,000 years old.
But the similarities between
the instruments aren’t just physical,
? Foghl? said. Modern Keralan
kompu horns in India are
part of an ensemble, in which
they are used percussively and
rhythmically, perhaps more
musically akin to a drum than a
trumpet. The tuning of these instruments,
which can sound out
of tune with each other to the
unpracticed ear, may also provide
clues about how the ancient
European horns were played,
says ? Foghl?.
«It is the musicological similarities
of these instruments that
are really wonderful,» ? Foghl?
said
By Rossella Lorenzi
King Tut was buried with a
dagger made of an iron that literally
came from space, says a new
study into the composition of the
iron blade from the sarcophagus
of the boy king.
Using non-invasive, portable
X-ray fluorescence spectrometry,
a team of Italian and Egyptian
researchers confirmed that
the iron of the dagger placed
on the right thigh of King Tut’s
mummified body a has meteoric
origin.
The team, which include
researchers from Milan Polytechnic,
Pisa University and the
Egyptian Museum in Cairo, detailed
their results in the journal
Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
The weapon, now on display
at the Egyptian Museum in
Cairo, was described in 1925 by
Howard Carter, who three years
before had discovered the treasure-packed
tomb, as «a highly
ornamented gold dagger with
crystal knob.»
Made of non-rusted, homogeneous
metal, the finely manufactured
blade features a decorated
gold handle. It is completed by
a gold sheath garnished with a
floral lily motif on one side and
with a feathers pattern on the
other side, terminating with a
jackal’s head.
Now dramatic technological
improvements have allowed
the researchers to determine the
composition of the blade.
«Meteoric iron is clearly indicated
by the presence of a high
percentages of nickel,» main
author Daniela Comelli, at the
department of Physics of Milan
Polytechnic, told Discovery
News.
Indeed, iron meteorites are
mostly made of iron and nickel,
with minor quantities of cobalt,
phosphorus, sulfur and carbon.
While artifacts produced with
iron ore quarrying display 4 percent
of nickel at most, the iron
blade of King Tut’s dagger was
found to contain nearly 11 percent
of nickel.
Further confirmation of the
blade’s meteoric origin came
from cobalt traces.
«The nickel and cobalt ratio
in the dagger blade is consistent
with that of iron meteorites that
have preserved the primitive
chondritic ratio during planetary
differentiation in the early
solar system,» Comelli said.
Comelli and colleagues also
investigated the possible source
of the iron blade.
«We took into consideration
all meteorites found within an
area of 2,000 km in radius centered
in the Red Sea, and we ended
up with 20 iron meteorites,»
Comelli said.
«Only one, named Kharga,
turned out to have nickel and cobalt
contents which are possibly
consistent with the composition
of the blade,» she added.
The meteorite fragment was
found in 2000 on a limestone
plateau at Mersa Matruh, a seaport
some 150 miles west of Alexandria.
The study shows the ancient
Egyptians attributed great value
to meteoritic iron for the production
of precious objects, possibly
perceiving those chunks of
iron falling from the sky as a divine
message.
The most ancient Egyptian
iron artifacts, nine small beads
excavated from a cemetery
along the west bank of the Nile
tomb in Gerzeh and dated about
3200 BC, are also made from
meteoritic iron hammered into
thin sheets.
«It would be very interesting
to analyze more pre-Iron Age
artifacts, such as other iron objects
found in King Tut’s tomb.
We could gain precious insights
into metal working technologies
in ancient Egypt and the Mediterranean,»
Comelli said.
She noted that the high quality
of King Tut’s dagger blade
shows that iron smithing was
successful already in the 14th
century B.C.
The dagger blade is not the
only celestial object found in the
boy king’s tomb. His pectoral,
or necklace, features an amulet
scarab which is not «greenishyellow
chalcedony,» as Carter
had noted, but Libyan desert
silica glass.
The glass was produced by the
impact on the sand of a meteorite
or comet. Such natural glass
exists only in the remote and
inhospitable Great Sand Sea of
Egypt– the Western Desert. In
order to produce the scarab, the
ancient Egyptians would have
had to trek across 500 desert
miles