Travel

Last year Ernst van de Wetering published the work as entirely by Rembrandt, executed in circa 1646 and circa 1652. The condition of Saul and David was not ideal. Although structurally sound, it certainly looked the worse for wear. The prominent vertical join and added piece were disfiguring. The paint surface was heavily flattened throughout, and the old varnish was yellowed and cracked. more »

Adrienne Cannon writes: It is raining in Istanbul on the first day of the tour. Our tour guide sets a quick pace during our visit to the Hagia Sophia mosque, and though I trot along as fast as I can, I fall behind the group. As we exit, I peer through the crowds trying to find the guide who has disappeared in a sea of umbrellas. For a few tense minutes I am alone and lost. Finally our unhappy tour guide finds me and cautions us all not to ever get lost as we will slow up the entire group. What a great beginning to my tour! more »

Sonya Zalubowski writes: We saw all of the 'Big Five' on our safari. I never knew exactly what they were and what the term meant, 'the five most dangerous animals to hunt on foot in Africa'. They include the Cape buffalo, the elephant, the leopard, the lion and the now rare black rhino, hunted for its horn, prized in Asia as a medicine. The Maasai tribe and the wild animals and yes, we, the tourists, manage to continue in all of our ways, though there is controversy over how long this can go on as human population grows and further encroaches on the wild animals of Africa. more »

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute study revealed that each cell in normal facial skin carries many thousands of mutations, mainly caused by exposure to sunlight. Around 25 per cent of skin cells in samples from people without cancer were found to carry at least one cancer-associated mutation. The mutations observed showed the patterns associated with the most common and treatable form of skin cancer linked to sun exposure, known as cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma, rather than melanoma, a rarer and sometimes fatal form of skin cancer. more »