Sorry Liz, but THIS is the real face of Cleopatra

By Fiona Macrae

From Elizabeth Taylor to Sophia Loren, there have been many faces of Cleopatra. But this might be the most realistic of them all.

Egyptologist Sally Ann Ashton believes the compute regenerated 3D image is the best likeness of the legendary beauty famed for her ability to beguile.

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Likeness: The computer-generated 3D image has been pieced together from images on ancient artefacts

Pieced together from images on ancient artefacts, including a ring dating from Cleopatra's reign 2,000 years ago, it is the culmination of more than a year of painstaking research.

The result is a beautiful young woman of mixed ethnicity - very different to the porcelain-skinned Westernised version portrayed by Elizabeth Taylor in the 1961 movie Cleopatra.

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Realism: The result is a strikingly beautiful young woman of mixed ethnicity

Dr Ashton, of Cambridge University, said the images, to be broadcast as part of a Five documentary on Cleopatra, reflect the monarch's Greek heritage as well as her Egyptian upbringing.

'She probably wasn't just completely European. You've got to remember that her family had actually lived in Egypt for 300 years by the time she came to power.'

Detail: Image of Cleopatra on the temple walls of Dendera

The picture of the queen contrasts with several other less flattering portrayals. For instance, a silver coin which went on show at Newcastle University's Sefton Museum last year showed her as having a shallow forehead, pointed chin, thin lips and hooked nose. Her lover, the Roman general Mark Antony, fared little better.

The reverse side shows him to have bulging eyes and a thick neck. The queen's appearance has long been the subject of debate among academics. While Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra made reference to her youthful looks and 'infinite-variety', many believe she was short and frumpy with bad teeth.

Iconic: Liz Taylor in the 1961 film Cleopatra

A statue of Cleopatra exhibited at the British Museum in 2001 portrayed her as plain, no more than 5ft tall and rather plump.

Born in Alexandra in 69BC, into a Macedonian Greek dynasty which had ruled Egypt for three centuries, Cleopatra acceded to the throne at 17. Three years later she seduced Julius Caesar, bearing him a son, Caesarion.

After Caesar was assassinated she courted Mark Antony before committing suicide on his death. Legend has it that she put an asp, a venomous serpent, to her breast.

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Cleopatra graphic

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RSi Unveils Power-Generating Transparent Photovoltaic-Glass Window

Written by Ariel Schwartz

Solar windows are nothing new, but Rainbow Solar’s (RSi) new transparent photovoltaic-glass window looks like a big step for building-integrated photovoltaics. The window, which generates 80 to 250 watts of electricity, comes with some swanky extras— a built-in electrical privacy curtain as well as a new technology to convert the window into a light panel.

According to a recent study performed by the NTUST (National Taiwan University of Science and Technology), the new window has proven energy savings greater than 50 percent. RSi’s window can be built up to 9×9 ft in size, and uses battery technology with a lifespan of 55 years.

RSi claims that their technology could one day eliminate the need for electrical power plants. While I think that may be a bit of an exaggeration, the company’s solar windows are an easy, practical way for buildings to generate their own electricity.

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Your Self-powered Electronic Future

A sound-powered cellphone might sound like donuts that help you lose weight, an anti-hangover alcohol or an ad for "Guaranteed returns, work from home, APPLY NOW" - but it might well be possible. A team of Texan scientists have published a paper claiming a breakthrough allowing audio-energized electronics.

Piezoelectric materials can convert between electrical energy and mechanical motion. Normally we use them that way, forming the heart of speaker systems, but recent advances have increased interest in running them backwards. Any situation where things are moving anyway is potentially a power source. One Japanese train station is already testing electricity generating floors in a train station, harnessing power from a million passengers a day, while the US Army is obviously interested. Piezoelectric suits would mean less weight for soldiers to carry - the very act of walking would power small electronics.

Professor Tagin's paper states there is a magic mini-size for piezoelectric parts which radically enhances their efficiency. At around twenty-one nanometers, their model shows a hundred per cent increase in electricity generation. Such an increase is not impossible (piezeolectrics are very far from being totally efficient converters), but before anybody throws out their charger they should wait for a working prototype.

Or even for a complete model. The paper presenting this case is a rapid communication paper, which certain key elements of the derivation replaced with the phrase "We suppress further details (which will also be presented elsewhere)", but without that magic little superscript-number which would tell you where that elsewhere is. It's certainly not unusual for this to happen in science - getting the exciting headline out the door to pave the way for your main paper - but neither is waiting for the full picture before organizing your "We don't need batteries anymore" party.

The final barrier between man and machine is being broken down. The ultimate in input is on the way, with the beginnings of a machine that can tell what you're thinking about. If you can think of awesome applications of this technology, cool. If you can think of terrifying ones, congratulations on having a better understanding of the world.

The work is led by Dr Kang Cheung of the RIKEN Brain Research Institute, who could honestly only sound more like a Bond villain if he had a "Von" in there somewhere. The work is based on functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), an uprade to MRI which focuses on the flow of blood through the brain.

A surprising amount of information can be extracted from blood flow. While you might think it's just "Fast heartbeat = active, slow = sitting on your ass", in the brain the massive network of capillaries is much more complex. Active neurons consume oxygen at an increased rate, and since oxygen and de-oxygenated blood have different magnetic susceptibilities the areas of activity light up on the fMRI computer screen.

A group of Japanese research institutions have worked to harness this intra-intelligence-organ intel into images, and can now successfully recreate ten-by-ten black and white images. Images, this part is important, read directly out of the living brain of a human and displayed on a computer screen. Further, the team believe that more complex images and eventually emotions and ideas are just a matter of time.

Don't worry about your boss delving into your daydreams just yet - the equipment needs calibration for each person, and the minor issue of said person being strapped down into an fMRI machine. But watch out: if there's on thing we in general, and the Japanese in particular, are good at, it's miniaturization.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

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