The Uni of Exeter is planning to turn the Book of Exeter (and a few others as well) into an app - well, not turning, really, but making an app to allow young people exploration of these old manuscripts. This includes turning elements of the book into games and puzzles - very fitting for an Anglo-Saxon riddle book that is not completely surviving and therefor a riddle in itself!

There's a short explanatory video about it on vimeo, and even if you're not interested in the app, it's worth watching for a) the lovely accent of the speaker (I just love British accents) and b) the pictures of old books.

Nobody can do research without money. Because researchers, like all other people, need to sleep (preferably somewhere dry and not too cold), to wear something (yes, really) and to eat something (not only chocolate, though it should be in there somewhere if you ask me). And all that needs some money.

If you are more or less involved in museums, archaeology research facilities or similar institutions, you will know that money is always scarce there. I remember being a student helper when I was still studying; we'd get paid for doing necessary preparatory work for papers such as taking and sorting slides, or helping when there was a conference. There was scarcely enough money to pay for the work that really needed to be done. Nobody doing a phd would have a chance of getting paid from the Uni - either you got funding somewhere else, or you were self-funded. You had a chance to get a work space (as in "a table") in one of the department's rooms, though they were limited, and you had to bring your own computer.

There's no law that says good research cannot be done with a low budget. But a low budget is severely limiting research in several ways: time, resources, possibilities, presentation.
Someone researching topic X with no money for it has to provide not only for the necessities of life, but also for the research. Books and articles are expensive, as are trips to libraries further away. All this has to be paid for - or our researcher has to do without. Time has to be spent on other, paid work. No funding also means little possibility to use newer analysis methods. And finally, no funding as in "you pay for going to that conference* all by yourself" means fewer possiblilties to exchange knowledge and experience with other researchers, limiting not only that one person's research, but also its impact. (Even worse when the conference has no funding and thus publication takes ages and ages and ages. Ask me how I know.)

Why am I writing all this? The next summit of the EU heads of states on 22-23 November 2012 will be a decisive step in determining the EU research budget for the next seven years. The conditions are not favorable: the financial crisis has put severe constraints on the national budgets and several countries, in particular the "net-payers", are demanding cuts on the total EU budget. Research and innovation will compete with other policy priorities.

Fourty-two Nobel Laureates and five Fields Medallists (something like Nobel, but for Maths folks) have written an open letter urging the EU to keep funding research. This has turned into a petition that you can sign here - and then join me in hoping this will be enough to keep the EU from cutting budget.

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* The conferences are not as pricey as, say, medical conferences usually are - but still: you need to sleep somewhere, you need to eat something, you need to get there and back again, and pay the conference fee. Conferences (and I so love going to them) are one of the big spending points in my budget.

You can do a lot of funny studies in science, I knew that before. You can also do studies that are... interesting but maybe not so very helpful.

There has been a recent one about chocolate consumption. Even if you are not reading up on the newest health insights regularly, you stumble across stuff. I only snap up things from time to time and more or less by chance - such as that coffee has now become a very healthy drink that might even reduce the risk for depression), but only if you drink enough (as always) and not too much. (And do they realise there's a difference between US coffee, normal coffee and Swedish coffee? As in one cup of Swedish coffee probably equals ten cups of US coffee?)

But this is the weirdest study I have seen in a while. Someone (an M.D., to be precise) actually tried to link a nation's collective cognitive functions to chocolate consumption, on something that is not a very wide or, in my opinion, good database. Erm. I would not have drawn the same conclusions as the author from the results of the study as shown in the graphic. I'll just say "too little data error". Getting a Nobel Prize is, moreover, definitely not only a result of superior cognitive functions. Anyone else think publications, politics, luck? And what about the collective cognitive function in those countries where there is no record about chocolate consumption? And what about consumption of the other flavonoid-containing foodstuffs listed right at the start of the article? Gah.

Anyways - one of the studies cited in that article had really come to the conclusion that cocoa (and thus, chocolate, in a way) improves cognitive function under certain circumstances. So... should I print out that article abstract to use as an excuse when I have a chocolate binge? Or should I just continue as always? Oh, the choices science gives us...

Sex and gender are topics that come up again and again in history, in archaeology... and in the blogosphere as well as in geekdom. There's a 19th century gender concept hidden in many, many pictures (including "snapshots" of some historical scenes rendered by artists for exhibitions and textbooks), and it's more than easy to fall into traps regarding pre-fixed gender concepts that still sit deep in our society.

I thought that we were, maybe, slowly moving away from all that. I hoped it, at least.

And then I stumbled across the pens. Pens, my friends, that are not normal pens, no. Not even normal biros. They are... "For Her Ball Point Pens". Yes, really. (Also available in the Big River Store, now with many more product reviews than when Regretsy first posted about the pens. If you have some time, go read them - they are hilarious.)

Can you believe it? Pens. For Her. Because females... yes, they are not supposed to use male pens. Imagine! Men's pens! Women! I can totally understand if someone has issues with bulky, thick pens. I have issues with bulky, thick pens, and I don't like to use them, but that's not because I am female, or because I have really small hands, but because I am a left-handed person. And this means I grip a pen very close to the tip for writing, and fine motor control for the specific motions of a left-handed person writing is much easier when the pen is slim.

I will now go on with my work, using the unisex laptop, unisex phone and non-gender-marked ballpoint pen. Life's butch.

This coming weekend will be the event "Kurs Haithabu"(website available in English), a meeting of lots of old (reconstructed) viking ships and boats at (or near) Haithabu, North of Germany. They are expecting 22 vessels with 350 persons of crew, so it is going to be one big event.

And how do you get 22 ships to Haithabu? You sail them, of course. Only that's not so easy with fog and the electronic navigation off due to lack of battery power - so one Polish ship had to get some help from German sea rescue boats on its way to Haithabu. (It's a German article, but it has a pic, too.) They got stranded on a sand bank in the fog and had to be towed off - but will continue their journey as planned after drying themselves (and, presumably, re-charging that battery).

If you are reading this blog, there is a rather high chance that the name "Oseberg" will mean something to you. Just in case it does not: The Oseberg ship was a Viking age burial ship and a spectacular archaeological find. It has beautiful carvings, and, as usual for a burial ship, was equipped with the burial (of course), other wooden items (such as a wagon), non-wooden items, and some equally spectacular textiles (the pictures aren't of spectacular quality in this link, but it will give you an overview of the finds).

The ship was found in 1903 and excavated in 1904. And now, it seems, the wooden items are in really, really dire need of reconservation - as this article (in Norwegian) describes.

For those of you who do not read Norwegian: The conservation method used for several of the wooden finds (not the ship) was employing alum as a stabilising agent. This has made the wood very brittle, and now it has been found that the finds are slowly rotting away from the inside, so that  they are only still kept together by the slightly more stable surface. The main items afflicted with this are the wagon and the sled. The museum has asked for money from the Norwegian government to save the finds, but this was denied. Because, the government says, the museum and/or university should be paying for something like this out of their own budget.  (They asked for approximately 5 million Euro to save the finds. And everybody knows that any museum or university can easily afford a sum like that, just so, at the drop of any hat.)
According to the article, the finds could fall apart any moment. (Thanks to Natascha Mehler and Rainer Schreg for translating all that to German, so I could translate on.)


I don't know what to say. I really, really don't. Norway is not that poor a country, and the finds really are outstanding and a piece of their cultural heritage.

Now the museum's last hope is for private sponsors. 


I still can't believe this.

First of all, if you are interested in hearing about textiles and economy, don't forget that the conference in Copenhagen starts tomorrow at 9 in the morning (GMT +1). All the links to participate via remote connection are up, and I think folks in Copenhagen are looking forward to having a remote audience too! This is certainly something that makes me feel all futuristic.

In other news, the flowery newness is not yet finished; there's still some (but considerably less) work to do - mostly the last embellishments plus the edges of the thing.

And finally, I have been looking for an alternative to amazon again (why? they are too mighty, and they know it), since they gobbled up the bookdepository online shop in 2011, prompting quite a few concerned reactions. I have now heard that at least for Germany, buch.de seems to be a good alternative - free shipping for books (in the country, at least), a decent selection of English books, and their prices are only slightly higher than those of bookdepository or amazon. I can live with slightly higher prices if the rest is fine - plus they even offer several different payment methods with no added costs, like paying after getting an invoice.