Yes, I know that this title is sort of a TYCO (Thank you, Captain Obvious) - there is never (or just very rarely) enough money for anything. But in this case, it could turn out to be dire.

Germany has a non-unified approach to cultural heritage management, as well as to handling the finances of archaeological excavations that become necessary due to construction works. Some are better from the archaeologists' point of view, some are not as good. All of them, however, tend to get a budget cut in times when resources are getting fewer.

Now Nordrhein-Westfalen, one of the federal states that make up Germany, is trying to cut funding for archaeology completely. You can read an English article about this here, nicely titled "Neanderthal birthplace kills archaeology funding".

There is a petition running against this, and you can sign the petition for a rollback of the change here (page in German only). Signing is done by stating your full name (Vollständiger Name), zip code and city (PLZ/Ort), street and street number (Straße/Hausnr.), email address and then clicking "Unterschreiben". If you check "Anonym unterschreiben", your name etc will not be shown, and if you need this how-to, you probably want to remove the checkmark at "Informationen ..." or you will receive German-language updates regarding this and similar petitions. Germany's archaeologists thank you for your support!

Edit: The society responsible for the petition has translated it into English - you can read the English version here.

A few nice, new and exciting things have come to my attention, internet-wise, during the last days - so it's time for a link list.

A find of a smelting oven, not too far from here, has been radiocarbon-dated. It's from the 13th century, making it one of the quite late ovens of that type. Read more about it (and see pics) in the Schauhuette blog.

If you are more into graphics design, you might be interested in having a look at the Elephants of Typography.

There's something new out regarding the finds of Lengberg - parts of the find are presented in the book "The Tudor Child". Beatrix Nutz has also made a website about this in German and in English, including some additional information about the pieces that will not be in the book.

There will be a conference about children's garments in Krefeld in May; the German language info page is here.

And finally, something not so nice: A 15 year old girl on the Maledives was raped by her stepfather - and was then sentenced to public flogging because she had sex while not married. I won't go into that further, because it's obviously so, so wrong on so, so many levels. The only positive thing about it is that word got out, and now there is a public outcry about it, and a petition running to get the Maledives government to abolish that law and institute better protection for rape victims (and actual prosecution for the criminals!). It's run by Avaaz, and signing is easy the first time and even easier once you have registered in their network.

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).