The Book of THoTH Newsletter Issue 143
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ReverendChaos
Apr 6, 2009, 6:13:55 AM4/6/09
to The Book Of THoTH
Newsletter for the week of March 30th to April 5th
Hello to everyone! To all of our new subscribers out there, welcome
to the book of THoTH Newsletter and to our Book of THoTH Google
group. Thanks for taking the time to subscribe and thanks for joining
our group. We're glad that you've joined our mailing list and hope
that you enjoy what we have to offer in its pages.
As of this newsletter, we have had 21 new members to join us this
week at BoT. To those who've joined, we say thanks for taking the
time to be a part of the greatest paranormal site on the web! Due to
this new addition of members, we now stand at 7,804 members strong. A
huge thanks to each and everyone of you for helping to make this site
what it has become! We couldn't do it without you.
This Week at BoT:
The most prestigious GoldStar award has changed hands twice since our
last newsletter. Our last holder, Momma, has passed the shiny star
over to Poppy for being "someone who is such an asset to BOT" and for
"his sense of fair play..and for his wisdom in the forums".
Congratulations, Poppy! It's very well deserved.
As the week closed, Poppy then tackled the difficult task of passing
along the GoldStar to another deserving member. After a little
searching, that task proved to be more easier than thought. Poppy
then handed his GoldStar onto our very own Boss, THoTH, for putting
together the site that we all love. Congratulations, THoTH! Wear it
well, as it's well earned.
TrentCoole has finally got an answer for this BoT LabCoat question.
His question was, "What is the proper terminology for when a barren
landscape (such as a volcanic island arising from the sea or an
abandoned open pit mine) develops naturally into an ecosystem & what
is involved?". The correct answer was given when cato9tails responded
with, "could we be talking about primary succession and the cousin
being natural succession, also known as ecological succession".
Congratulations, Cat!
Cat then posted the question of, "what is Talk and Die sydrome and can
you give an example", which was quickly and correctly answered by Crux
with, "Bleeding in the brain" and "Natasha Richardson". Way to go
Crux!
Crux then posted a five-part question which was:
1. What is heamachromatosis?
2. How do you acquire it?
3. What are the main treatments?
4. What can be the outcome if left untreated?
5. Name 2 famous people with this malady?
TrentCoole came in again with the correct answer of:
"1. It's a genetic disorder where there is a high absorption and
depositing of iron from the blood.
2. I believe both parents have to be carriers of the gene.
3. Venesection (or phlebotomy) until levels of iron are low enough
that can go on for a long time. Desferal (desferrioxamine). Diet can
help. I also read that a liver transplant will resolve it.
4. It can lead to death. It affects the cardiovascular and endocrine
systems. Cirrhosis is known to be one as well as arthritis.
5. I don't know of any famous people except yourself. If you look at
people as a group, 2 famous groups of people were the Celts & the
Vikings, from who the condition is said to originate according to one
site."
Congratulations, Trent!
Trent hasn't posted a new question yet, so keep your eyes out in the
"BoT LabCoat Quiz Part VIII" thread if you want a shot at wearing the
stylish BoT LabCoat.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopic-19452-90.html
This Week in the Forums:
Was a UFO by Google Earth? According to a thread by aussiET, a woman
was using Google Earth to search for friends when she found a UFO
instead. To read more about this find and to see the pictures, be
sure to take a look at "UFO captured by google earth" in the UFO
section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20054.html
"Rediscovering Alien Technology" is a thread by Anuatlantian where he
gives examples of technologies that have possible extraterrestrial
origins. What are these technologies? Are they really as new as we
think they are? To read more of Anuatlatian's article and to join in
on the discussion, don't miss the thread in the Aliens/
Extraterrestrial section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20082.html
For a look at some fantastic photographs of Ospreys, be sure to see
Kira's thread in the Animal Kingdom & Cryptozoology section. If
you're a fan of birds of prey, this is one that shouldn't be missed.
To see the link that Kira has provided us with and to lend your
comments, take a look at "For the Osprey fans".
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20121.html
Juno54 has a new feature in the forums where she'll post some
interesting and sometimes quirky tidbits from the world of Science.
This week Juno starts off by telling us a little bit about Albert
Ghiorso, "Nuclear Science's Elemental Man". She also gives us some
information on current police technology being used in the UK to not
only take the place of paperwork but to help solve crimes. To read
more and to be on the lookout for up and coming information from Juno,
don't miss "Juno's Bi-Weekly Bytes" in the Edge of Science section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20070.html
An old thread about an even older discovery has been bumped up with
some related information. According to an archived article from the
New York Times from 1885, an underground city was found by workers in
a Missouri coal mine. To read more about this and to see what
questions and information recent members have to offer, see "Buried
City in Missouri" in the Alternative History & Civilizations section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-16045.html
Random Site Feature of the Week:
If you've ever wanted to have a conversation with an AI program, we
have one right here at BoT called the THoTH-BoT. Just type in your
questions or what ever else you want to say to it, hit Enter on your
keyboard, and then it see it's response. But be careful though, he's
a chatty fellow and as even been known to tell some members that it's
planning to take over the world!
To talk to the THoTH-BoT, visit this page:
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/thothbot.html
He also has his own place in one of our chat rooms. You can chat to
him there by going to:
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/chat/flashchat.php
Strange Fact of the Week:
A man by the name of Solomon Allen claimed that he saw a sea serpent
in the Gloucester, Massachusetts harbor one day in 1817. He swore
that the creature was eighty feet long and said, "His head formed
something like the head of a rattlesnake, but nearly as large as the
head or a horse". Several other people in the nearby area reported
similar sightings, all which still remain unexplained.
Trivia Question of the Week:
According to research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of
Medicine in London, what book was Scottish scientists James Lind the
inspiration for?
Answer to Last Weeks Trivia Question:
In the late 18th century, what animal did Europeans think was a hoax,
even after taxidermied specimens arrived?
The duckbilled platypus. After word of the animal reached Europe in
1797, everyone thought the tales about them were fake. Even
taxidermied specimens didn't convince them, as people suspected that
it was just different parts of different animals sewn and glued
together. The fact that it was an egg-laying animal didn't do
anything to convince them either, as this was thought to be
impossible. People finally believed the story when scientists
performed on-site observations of the strange animal in it's natural
habitat.
This Week in History:
April 5, 1792: U.S. President George Washington cast the first
presidential veto.
April 5, 1971: Canadian Fran Phipps became the first woman to reach
the North Pole.
April 6, 1830: Joseph Smith and five others organized the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York.
April 6, 1896: First modern Olympic Games opened in Athens, Greece.
April 7, 1913: 5,000 suffragists march to the Capitol in Washington,
D.C. , seeking the vote for women.
April 7, 1994: Hutu extremists in Rwanda began massacring ethnic
Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. In 100 days of killing, an
estimated 800,000 are murdered.
April 8, 1513: Ponce de León claimed Florida for Spain.
April 8, 1946: The League of Nations assembled for the last time.
April 9, 1942: American and Philippine troops on Bataan were
overwhelmed by Japanese forces during World War II. The "Bataan Death
March" began soon after.
April 9, 1959: NASA announced the selection of America’s first
astronauts, including Alan Shepard and John Glenn.
April 10, 1963: The atomic-powered submarine Thresher sank off Cape
Cod, Mass.
April 10, 1998: The Northern Ireland "Good Friday Accord" was
reached.
April 11, 1814: Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba.
April 11, 1968: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1968 Civil
Rights Act.
This Week's Birthdays:
Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827) - Joseph Lister was an English surgeon
who, while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, encouraged the idea
of sterile surgery. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid to
sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds. If his name
sounds familiar, it's because the popular Listerine mouthwash was
named after him.
Raphael Santi (April 6, 1483) - Also known as Raffaello, he was an
Italian painter and architect of the Florentine school in High
Renaissance. Known for the perfection and grace of his paintings, his
first documented work was an altarpiece for the church of San Nicola
of Tolentino in Citta di Castello. Greatly influenced by Fra
Bartolomeo, who encouraged him to adopt more grandiose and powerful
forms, his most famous works are "Sybils", "La Fornarina", and
"Portrait of Pope Julius II".
Francis Ford Coppola (April 7, 1939) - Coppola is a five-time Academy
Award-winning American film director, producer, and screenwriter.
Away from show business, Coppola is also a vintner, magazine
publisher, and hotelier. He is most well known for directing the
popular "Godfather" films, "The Conversation", and "Apocalypse Now".
April 8, Betty Ford (April 8, 1918) - Born in Chicago as Elizabeth Ann
Bloomer, Ford is the widow of former U.S. President Gerald Ford. She
was the First Lady from 1974 to 1977 and is the founder and former
chairman of the board of directors of the Betty Ford Center for
substance abuse.
Charles Baudelaire (April 9, 1821) - Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a
nineteenth century French poet, critic, and translator. A
controversial figure in his lifetime, Baudelaire's name has become a
byword for literary and artistic decadence. At the same time however,
his works have been acknowledged as classics of French literature.
Matthew C. Perry (April 10, 1794) - Matthew Perry was the Commodore of
the U.S. Navy who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the
Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. He was also called the Father of the
Steam Navy due to him being a proponent of modernizing the Navy and
overseeing the construction of the Navy's second steam frigate, the
USS Fulton. He also organized America's first corps of naval
engineers and conducted the first U.S. naval gunnery school while
commanding the Fulton.
Percy Lavon Julian (April 11, 1899) - Julian was an American research
chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs
from plants. His chemical synthesis of human steroids from plant
steroid precursors eventually set the foundation for the birth control
pill and cortisone. During his life he received more than 130
chemical patents and was the second African American to receive a
doctorate in chemistry, as well as the first African American chemist
inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
Tech Tip of the Week:
Do you get tired of having to reset your Num Lock button so you can
use your numbers keypad. This week's tip will tell you how to set
your Num Lock so that it will stay on by default in Windows.
There are two different ways to do this. The first one is by editing
your registry. If you know how to use Registry Editor correctly and
feel comfortable with doing so, click on Start, then Run, and then
type Regedt32.exe in the Run command. Click OK and then navigate to
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard. From there, change the
value for InitialKeyboardIndicators from 0 to 2.
If you'd rather not go into the registry, you can do the same thing by
configuring the script to change the Num Lock state. To do this,
click on Start, then Accessories, and then open Notepad. Copy the
following code and paste it into Notepad:
set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.SendKeys "{NUMLOCK}"
Now save this file with the name "num.vbs". Include the quotes. Copy
this file to the startup folder. The path for the startup folder is:
Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Now restart your computer. Num Lock should now come on and stay on.
Unsolved Question of the Week:
This week's unsolved question focuses on the Voynich manuscript.
The Voynich manuscript is a strange illustrated book with, so far,
undecipherable text. Possibly written sometime between 1450 and 1520
by an unknown author, the Voynich manuscripts contains a strange
unknown writing and has been the focus of intense study by
cryptographers since it was acquired in 1912 by Wilfrid M. Voynich.
Everyone from amateur cryptographers to to some of the top
codebreakers of WWII have been stumped by it.
The illustrations shed a little light on the contents, but still the
writing within it is not understood. There are six sections of the
book, appearing to deal with subject matters such as plants, biology,
astrology, and pharmaceutical. The text has patterns similar to
modern written language, having what looks to be paragraphs and
perhaps even follows phonetic laws of some kind (having the equivalent
of vowels for instance), and even has Latin script in some places.
The history of the book remains unsolved for the post part. The
illustrations may lend evidence to the books age, showing the dress
and hairstyles of human figures as well as pictures of castles. All
of these look as if they are European in origin and judging from them
they are estimated to be from around 1450 to 1520. The earliest owner
of the manuscript has been confirmed to be Georg Baresch, an alchemist
from Prague in the early 17th century. But he was just a puzzled by
the book as people of today.
The strange features and suspicious contents of it's illustrations
lead some to believe that the book is a hoax. However, some feel the
exact opposite, that it's too sophisticated and complex to be such.
Especially considering that hoaxes of that day and time were often
thought to be sloppy and crudely made. Whether it is a hoax or not,
the book has been accused of having authors ranging from Franciscan
friar, Roger Bacon, to John Dee, and even Wilfrid Voynich himself.
All of this lends to credence to the fact that the Voynich manuscript
is one of those mysteries that may never be solved.
Quote of the Week:
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."
- Douglas Adams
That concludes this week's edition of the BoT newsletter. We hope
that you've enjoyed it, found it a nice change in your inbox, and are
looking forward to receiving the next one. As always, we should have
lots more waiting in store for you.
Until next time, keep your eyes to the skies and the door to your mind
unlocked. You never know who might drop by for a visit.
Hello to everyone! To all of our new subscribers out there, welcome
to the book of THoTH Newsletter and to our Book of THoTH Google
group. Thanks for taking the time to subscribe and thanks for joining
our group. We're glad that you've joined our mailing list and hope
that you enjoy what we have to offer in its pages.
As of this newsletter, we have had 21 new members to join us this
week at BoT. To those who've joined, we say thanks for taking the
time to be a part of the greatest paranormal site on the web! Due to
this new addition of members, we now stand at 7,804 members strong. A
huge thanks to each and everyone of you for helping to make this site
what it has become! We couldn't do it without you.
This Week at BoT:
The most prestigious GoldStar award has changed hands twice since our
last newsletter. Our last holder, Momma, has passed the shiny star
over to Poppy for being "someone who is such an asset to BOT" and for
"his sense of fair play..and for his wisdom in the forums".
Congratulations, Poppy! It's very well deserved.
As the week closed, Poppy then tackled the difficult task of passing
along the GoldStar to another deserving member. After a little
searching, that task proved to be more easier than thought. Poppy
then handed his GoldStar onto our very own Boss, THoTH, for putting
together the site that we all love. Congratulations, THoTH! Wear it
well, as it's well earned.
TrentCoole has finally got an answer for this BoT LabCoat question.
His question was, "What is the proper terminology for when a barren
landscape (such as a volcanic island arising from the sea or an
abandoned open pit mine) develops naturally into an ecosystem & what
is involved?". The correct answer was given when cato9tails responded
with, "could we be talking about primary succession and the cousin
being natural succession, also known as ecological succession".
Congratulations, Cat!
Cat then posted the question of, "what is Talk and Die sydrome and can
you give an example", which was quickly and correctly answered by Crux
with, "Bleeding in the brain" and "Natasha Richardson". Way to go
Crux!
Crux then posted a five-part question which was:
1. What is heamachromatosis?
2. How do you acquire it?
3. What are the main treatments?
4. What can be the outcome if left untreated?
5. Name 2 famous people with this malady?
TrentCoole came in again with the correct answer of:
"1. It's a genetic disorder where there is a high absorption and
depositing of iron from the blood.
2. I believe both parents have to be carriers of the gene.
3. Venesection (or phlebotomy) until levels of iron are low enough
that can go on for a long time. Desferal (desferrioxamine). Diet can
help. I also read that a liver transplant will resolve it.
4. It can lead to death. It affects the cardiovascular and endocrine
systems. Cirrhosis is known to be one as well as arthritis.
5. I don't know of any famous people except yourself. If you look at
people as a group, 2 famous groups of people were the Celts & the
Vikings, from who the condition is said to originate according to one
site."
Congratulations, Trent!
Trent hasn't posted a new question yet, so keep your eyes out in the
"BoT LabCoat Quiz Part VIII" thread if you want a shot at wearing the
stylish BoT LabCoat.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopic-19452-90.html
This Week in the Forums:
Was a UFO by Google Earth? According to a thread by aussiET, a woman
was using Google Earth to search for friends when she found a UFO
instead. To read more about this find and to see the pictures, be
sure to take a look at "UFO captured by google earth" in the UFO
section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20054.html
"Rediscovering Alien Technology" is a thread by Anuatlantian where he
gives examples of technologies that have possible extraterrestrial
origins. What are these technologies? Are they really as new as we
think they are? To read more of Anuatlatian's article and to join in
on the discussion, don't miss the thread in the Aliens/
Extraterrestrial section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20082.html
For a look at some fantastic photographs of Ospreys, be sure to see
Kira's thread in the Animal Kingdom & Cryptozoology section. If
you're a fan of birds of prey, this is one that shouldn't be missed.
To see the link that Kira has provided us with and to lend your
comments, take a look at "For the Osprey fans".
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20121.html
Juno54 has a new feature in the forums where she'll post some
interesting and sometimes quirky tidbits from the world of Science.
This week Juno starts off by telling us a little bit about Albert
Ghiorso, "Nuclear Science's Elemental Man". She also gives us some
information on current police technology being used in the UK to not
only take the place of paperwork but to help solve crimes. To read
more and to be on the lookout for up and coming information from Juno,
don't miss "Juno's Bi-Weekly Bytes" in the Edge of Science section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-20070.html
An old thread about an even older discovery has been bumped up with
some related information. According to an archived article from the
New York Times from 1885, an underground city was found by workers in
a Missouri coal mine. To read more about this and to see what
questions and information recent members have to offer, see "Buried
City in Missouri" in the Alternative History & Civilizations section.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/ftopict-16045.html
Random Site Feature of the Week:
If you've ever wanted to have a conversation with an AI program, we
have one right here at BoT called the THoTH-BoT. Just type in your
questions or what ever else you want to say to it, hit Enter on your
keyboard, and then it see it's response. But be careful though, he's
a chatty fellow and as even been known to tell some members that it's
planning to take over the world!
To talk to the THoTH-BoT, visit this page:
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/thothbot.html
He also has his own place in one of our chat rooms. You can chat to
him there by going to:
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/chat/flashchat.php
Strange Fact of the Week:
A man by the name of Solomon Allen claimed that he saw a sea serpent
in the Gloucester, Massachusetts harbor one day in 1817. He swore
that the creature was eighty feet long and said, "His head formed
something like the head of a rattlesnake, but nearly as large as the
head or a horse". Several other people in the nearby area reported
similar sightings, all which still remain unexplained.
Trivia Question of the Week:
According to research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of
Medicine in London, what book was Scottish scientists James Lind the
inspiration for?
Answer to Last Weeks Trivia Question:
In the late 18th century, what animal did Europeans think was a hoax,
even after taxidermied specimens arrived?
The duckbilled platypus. After word of the animal reached Europe in
1797, everyone thought the tales about them were fake. Even
taxidermied specimens didn't convince them, as people suspected that
it was just different parts of different animals sewn and glued
together. The fact that it was an egg-laying animal didn't do
anything to convince them either, as this was thought to be
impossible. People finally believed the story when scientists
performed on-site observations of the strange animal in it's natural
habitat.
This Week in History:
April 5, 1792: U.S. President George Washington cast the first
presidential veto.
April 5, 1971: Canadian Fran Phipps became the first woman to reach
the North Pole.
April 6, 1830: Joseph Smith and five others organized the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York.
April 6, 1896: First modern Olympic Games opened in Athens, Greece.
April 7, 1913: 5,000 suffragists march to the Capitol in Washington,
D.C. , seeking the vote for women.
April 7, 1994: Hutu extremists in Rwanda began massacring ethnic
Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. In 100 days of killing, an
estimated 800,000 are murdered.
April 8, 1513: Ponce de León claimed Florida for Spain.
April 8, 1946: The League of Nations assembled for the last time.
April 9, 1942: American and Philippine troops on Bataan were
overwhelmed by Japanese forces during World War II. The "Bataan Death
March" began soon after.
April 9, 1959: NASA announced the selection of America’s first
astronauts, including Alan Shepard and John Glenn.
April 10, 1963: The atomic-powered submarine Thresher sank off Cape
Cod, Mass.
April 10, 1998: The Northern Ireland "Good Friday Accord" was
reached.
April 11, 1814: Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba.
April 11, 1968: President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the 1968 Civil
Rights Act.
This Week's Birthdays:
Joseph Lister (April 5, 1827) - Joseph Lister was an English surgeon
who, while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary, encouraged the idea
of sterile surgery. Lister successfully introduced carbolic acid to
sterilize surgical instruments and to clean wounds. If his name
sounds familiar, it's because the popular Listerine mouthwash was
named after him.
Raphael Santi (April 6, 1483) - Also known as Raffaello, he was an
Italian painter and architect of the Florentine school in High
Renaissance. Known for the perfection and grace of his paintings, his
first documented work was an altarpiece for the church of San Nicola
of Tolentino in Citta di Castello. Greatly influenced by Fra
Bartolomeo, who encouraged him to adopt more grandiose and powerful
forms, his most famous works are "Sybils", "La Fornarina", and
"Portrait of Pope Julius II".
Francis Ford Coppola (April 7, 1939) - Coppola is a five-time Academy
Award-winning American film director, producer, and screenwriter.
Away from show business, Coppola is also a vintner, magazine
publisher, and hotelier. He is most well known for directing the
popular "Godfather" films, "The Conversation", and "Apocalypse Now".
April 8, Betty Ford (April 8, 1918) - Born in Chicago as Elizabeth Ann
Bloomer, Ford is the widow of former U.S. President Gerald Ford. She
was the First Lady from 1974 to 1977 and is the founder and former
chairman of the board of directors of the Betty Ford Center for
substance abuse.
Charles Baudelaire (April 9, 1821) - Charles Pierre Baudelaire was a
nineteenth century French poet, critic, and translator. A
controversial figure in his lifetime, Baudelaire's name has become a
byword for literary and artistic decadence. At the same time however,
his works have been acknowledged as classics of French literature.
Matthew C. Perry (April 10, 1794) - Matthew Perry was the Commodore of
the U.S. Navy who compelled the opening of Japan to the West with the
Convention of Kanagawa in 1854. He was also called the Father of the
Steam Navy due to him being a proponent of modernizing the Navy and
overseeing the construction of the Navy's second steam frigate, the
USS Fulton. He also organized America's first corps of naval
engineers and conducted the first U.S. naval gunnery school while
commanding the Fulton.
Percy Lavon Julian (April 11, 1899) - Julian was an American research
chemist and a pioneer in the chemical synthesis of medicinal drugs
from plants. His chemical synthesis of human steroids from plant
steroid precursors eventually set the foundation for the birth control
pill and cortisone. During his life he received more than 130
chemical patents and was the second African American to receive a
doctorate in chemistry, as well as the first African American chemist
inducted into the National Academy of Sciences.
Tech Tip of the Week:
Do you get tired of having to reset your Num Lock button so you can
use your numbers keypad. This week's tip will tell you how to set
your Num Lock so that it will stay on by default in Windows.
There are two different ways to do this. The first one is by editing
your registry. If you know how to use Registry Editor correctly and
feel comfortable with doing so, click on Start, then Run, and then
type Regedt32.exe in the Run command. Click OK and then navigate to
HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Keyboard. From there, change the
value for InitialKeyboardIndicators from 0 to 2.
If you'd rather not go into the registry, you can do the same thing by
configuring the script to change the Num Lock state. To do this,
click on Start, then Accessories, and then open Notepad. Copy the
following code and paste it into Notepad:
set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.SendKeys "{NUMLOCK}"
Now save this file with the name "num.vbs". Include the quotes. Copy
this file to the startup folder. The path for the startup folder is:
Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
Now restart your computer. Num Lock should now come on and stay on.
Unsolved Question of the Week:
This week's unsolved question focuses on the Voynich manuscript.
The Voynich manuscript is a strange illustrated book with, so far,
undecipherable text. Possibly written sometime between 1450 and 1520
by an unknown author, the Voynich manuscripts contains a strange
unknown writing and has been the focus of intense study by
cryptographers since it was acquired in 1912 by Wilfrid M. Voynich.
Everyone from amateur cryptographers to to some of the top
codebreakers of WWII have been stumped by it.
The illustrations shed a little light on the contents, but still the
writing within it is not understood. There are six sections of the
book, appearing to deal with subject matters such as plants, biology,
astrology, and pharmaceutical. The text has patterns similar to
modern written language, having what looks to be paragraphs and
perhaps even follows phonetic laws of some kind (having the equivalent
of vowels for instance), and even has Latin script in some places.
The history of the book remains unsolved for the post part. The
illustrations may lend evidence to the books age, showing the dress
and hairstyles of human figures as well as pictures of castles. All
of these look as if they are European in origin and judging from them
they are estimated to be from around 1450 to 1520. The earliest owner
of the manuscript has been confirmed to be Georg Baresch, an alchemist
from Prague in the early 17th century. But he was just a puzzled by
the book as people of today.
The strange features and suspicious contents of it's illustrations
lead some to believe that the book is a hoax. However, some feel the
exact opposite, that it's too sophisticated and complex to be such.
Especially considering that hoaxes of that day and time were often
thought to be sloppy and crudely made. Whether it is a hoax or not,
the book has been accused of having authors ranging from Franciscan
friar, Roger Bacon, to John Dee, and even Wilfrid Voynich himself.
All of this lends to credence to the fact that the Voynich manuscript
is one of those mysteries that may never be solved.
Quote of the Week:
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."
- Douglas Adams
That concludes this week's edition of the BoT newsletter. We hope
that you've enjoyed it, found it a nice change in your inbox, and are
looking forward to receiving the next one. As always, we should have
lots more waiting in store for you.
Until next time, keep your eyes to the skies and the door to your mind
unlocked. You never know who might drop by for a visit.
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