Update: Otzi unveiled

You might have read the blog post last week about Otzi the iceman's reconstruction. Well finally here he is:

And if you go the National Geographic's webpage, you can see all previous incarnations of Otzi - a bit like Otzi through the ages I suppose. But the real press images are at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology.

And would you believe, Otzi even has his own Facebook group!!

Working to the analytical limit

The last two days have been a bit stressful. We've worked hard over the last few months (year?) to write our new fabulous analytical science module, but with all things there's always a downside. Our is: we have too much to say. It's a constant problem of mine which I've learned to live with, but I (and the rest of the team) need to pull back and think carefully about a) the things we want to include and b) the things we need to include. These are inevitably two different things.

But why shouldn't we get carried away - we would't be doing this if we didn't want to share our enthusiasm!

Analytical deconstruction = reconstruction

One of my personal favourite parts of our new module (S240) is the chapter about heritage analysis. While many of the analytical techniques were familiar to me, their use in archaeology and art were new and utterly fascinating contexts that I become totally immersed in - I even had a "field trip" to the Mary Rose before she closed for refurbishment!

One of the most important stories in the chapter is that of Ötzi (or Oetzi) the Iceman who was found in the Tyrolean Alps in 1991. The analysis of this guy has been comprehensive, to say the least, and I've done my best to include as much as possible in the chapter. There are no spoilers here, you'll be sad to hear, butI thought it worth mentioning that he was in the news this week.

Since 2011 celebrates 20 years since his discovery, the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano (his home) have commissioned two Dutch guys (Alfons and Adrie Kennis) to produce a new reconstruction of Ötzi based on the results of analytical 3-D imaging (X-ray and CT-scanning). Image analysis has been comprehensive and revealed a LOT about Ötzi's health, lifestyle and death (I said no spoilers!). There's some pictures of the reconstruction process here.

Reconstructing his appearance is no mean feat because, although Ötzi was preserved very well, he did suffer some pressure damage during burial and retrieval. As you will see from the image above, he is not exactly looking his best these days ;-) (Image above c/o South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology via Wikipedia)

Reconstructions have been attempted before (right) but apparently this new one is unique because it gives Ötzi brown eyes. I'm not aware of any published results relating to this (I'm preparedto be wrong), but in 2010 his ancient DNA was sequenced, so perhaps there is some semblance of fact behind this. I know from reading about Ötzi that only fragments of his DNA were available for analysis, however. (Image c/o South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology)

I wish I was able to get to the museum in 2011 to see this, but alas that's unlikely while we're slogging on producing the new module, so I'll be keeping an eye on the web for any images - I assume there is an embargo until it goes on display in March. For more information on visiting Ötzi in Bolanzo, he has his own website! If you are lucky enough to go to the region there is also an art exhibition running alongside, and I particularly like the "ice sculpture" by Marilène Oliver - Iceman Frozen Scanned and Plotted. Clever idea!

CSI: Milton Keynes?

While in the supermarket at the weekend I spotted CSI games for the Nintendo Wii. As a new Wii user, and with analytical science constantly on my mind, I toyed with the purchase then dismissed it in favour of a new shredder. But after a long day today writing scripts for video voiceovers (talking about microscopes and the like) I decided to stick in an online order for CSI:Fatal Conspiracy. I'm curious about how they use the Wii to do stuff like evidence collecting, finger printing and DNA testing - some of which is covered in our new module (S240). I'm not particularly interested in the game, but for the purposes of research I suppose I can try it!

I don't think I'll get away with playing the Wii in working hours (shame), but it certainly might fuel some ideas for future practical work using gaming technology!

First post!

Well, here we are. Nanodamogram's first blog post. So what do we talk about? Nanodamogram is an alias, as you might imagine, and in reality we have multiple personas. We're a happy collective developing a module for the Open University about Analytical Science. Since this module includes analysis in the heath, environmental, heritage, food and space sectors we really wanted its code to include the number 42 (life, the universe and everything), but alas it was not to be - it's S240.

We toyed with the idea of a blog while we were writing the module material, but got caught up in the paperwork, but now we want those in the blogosphere to share our enthusiasm for the module and its themes. So here's our blog, and we're also on twitter (@nanodamogram). Once we've figured out how to do it, we'll have these interconnected, plus a facebook page!

For now, meet our favourite member of the module team, our chlamydia microbe - yes, we even have STIs in this module: