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Tag: Norway

The Well Man And The Bent Black Hole

Owen Gent.

A research team led by Assistant Professor Makoto Miyoshi of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) has independently re-analyzed observation data of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy obtained and published by the international joint observation project Event Horizon Telescope (EHT). They found that the structure is slightly elongated in the east-west direction.

A passage in the Norse “Sverris Saga,” the 800-year-old story of King Sverre Sigurdsson, describes a military raid that occurred in AD 1197, during which a body was thrown into a well at Sverresborg Castle, outside Trondheim in central Norway, likely as an attempt to poison the main water source for the local inhabitants.

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A new study published in iScience on October 25 describes how researchers used ancient DNA to corroborate the events of the saga and discover details about the “Well-man,” blending history and archaeology with science and setting a precedent for future research on historical figures.

“This is the first time that a person described in these historical texts has actually been found,” says Professor Michael D. Martin of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s University Museum in Trondheim, Norway.

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Norway, A Morning In 2008

Unerring Pub Sense brings me to the platz at the top end of Karl Johans Gate, where I now have an outside table, cigarettes, and a glass of the local energy muck, Batteri. Cloudy and cool — a lot of people acting like it’s early summer. Folkie-hipster dude in an unfortunate hat is trying to sell a plastic-wrapped magazine to passersby. Quite a few tourists: Germans with insane moustaches, Danes in waterproofs, a shivering Japanese couple, an enormous black man in pink shirt and powder-blue tanktop photographing everything in the square. A phalanx of six women working the square with flowers, crooning ”Romani. Please give. Romani.” They have hard eyes, years past the point where you just resent people for having coins in their pocket. A lone military officer strides past, wearing one of those peculiar caps with the tassel hanging in front. The back of his shaven head prickles with the chill wind now driving into the square.

(originally written May 2008)

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