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It doesn't take long to learn how to pull a shot of espresso. Search for that phrase on Youtube, and you'll find hours' worth of sound instruction, most of it in the form of brief and easily digestible videos. All of them cover the same basic stages of the process: grinding, dosing, tamping,…
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Listen to The Epic of Gilgamesh Being Read in its Original Ancient Language, Akkadian
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Creative Commons image by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin
Long ago, in the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia, Akkadian was the dominant language. And, for centuries, it remained the lingua franca in the Ancient Near East. But then it was gradually squeezed out by Aramaic, and it faded into oblivion once Alexander…
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A Medieval Arabic Manuscript Features the Designs for a “Perpetual Flute” and Other Ingenious Mechanical Devices
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In the late twelfth and early thirteenth century there lived a mechanically inclined polymath named Badi’ al-Zaman Abu-‘l-‘Izz Ibn Isma’il Ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari, whom we might prefer simply to call Al-Jazari. A resident of Diyar-Bakir, in modern-day Turkey, he was employed as a court engineer, and indeed, proved to be the finest…
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The Pulp Magazine Archive Lets You Read Thousands of Digitized Issues of Classic Sci-Fi, Fantasy & Detective Fiction
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Pulp Fiction will likely hold up generations from now, but the resonance of its title may already be lost to history. Pulp magazines, or “the pulps,” as they were called, once held special significance for lovers of adventure stories, detective and science fiction, and horror and fantasy. Acquiring the name from the cheap…
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Beethoven’s Genome Has Been Sequenced for the First Time, Revealing Clues About the Great Composer’s Health & Family History
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Ludwig van Beethoven died in 1827, a bit early to be subjected to the kinds of DNA analysis that have become so prevalent today. Luckily, the German-speaking world of the early nineteenth century still adhered to the custom of saving locks of hair from the deceased — particularly lucky for an archaeology student named Tristan…
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