From Toronto Globe & Mail, 11 February, 1999:
Reuters News agency, London
Cleopatra, renowned for her beauty, just might have benefited from the science of previous Egyptian dynasties when she seduced Mark Antony. The legendary Queen of the Nile, who lived from 69 to 30 BC, could have enhanced what nature gave her with cosmetics that were first manufactured more than 1,000 years before she was born and were surprisingly sophisticated for their time. French researchers said yesterday that a chemical analysis of powders found in the tombs of the pharaohs in the period 2000 to 1200 BC showed that some compounds were artificially synthesized and produced for specific purposes in a complicated process.
"Four thousand years ago, cosmetics had therapeutic applications. We only studied eye liners and eye shadows, but we are sure those products had a therapeutic impact on the eyes," said Patricia Pineau of the cosmetics company L'Oreal in Paris. The powders are preserved at the Louvre Museum in the French capital. Researchers from L'Oreal teamed up with scientists at the Louvre to analyze the makeup samples. Their research was published in the latest edition of the science journal Nature.
The scientists said some of the lead-based cosmetics could not have come from natural sources, particularly laurionite and phosgenite, two chlorine-containing oxidized-lead compounds very rare in nature. They think that they were artificially synthesized and added to crushed natural ores such as galena and cerussite to make black pigment for eye makeup. The scientists also discovered that the ancient Egyptians used "wet chemistry" - a technically difficult and repetitive process designed to synthesize molecules - long before anyone had suspected.
"That's something very surprising. We were amazed that they were able to take minerals and grind them to make solutions with specific colours and therapeutic applications," Ms. Pineau said by telephone from Paris.
The process the Egyptians probably used involved purified silver foam (lead oxide) that was crushed and mixed in water with rock salt and sometimes the mineral natron and then filtered. The process was repeated every day for several weeks.
When scientists at the Louvre repeated the process, their crystals of laurionite were similar to the Egyptian ones.
Researchers had previously found evidence in texts showing that the Greeks and Romans used wet chemistry, but this was the first proof that the ancient Egyptians also mastered it, Ms. Pineau added.
COMMENT: As some of the powders came from tombs of 2000 to 1200 BC, this provides one more evidence of the knowledge available in Egypt at the time of Moses, who was "learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians" (Acts 7:20). We appear to have come a long way since higher critics of the last century set the scholastic tone for academia!

"The AAG Newsletter"
a periodical of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 34, No 2, February, 1999 carries a note from "Ptolemy"; which explains that in Britain where research and development on Non Fossil Fuel sources of energy is taking place, they now produce about 538 MW of such energy in England and Wales. The next round will add another 1,177 MW, enough for 1.4 million homes, most from landfill gas, waste, and large wind farms, and, at 2.71 pence per kWh, the price will approach current cost levels. Wave energy is to be tapped next, possibly in Scotland as some innovators are seeking to research this on the Hebridean Island of Islay, which receives waves from the ocean sweep from Labrador. While Ptolemy indicates the enthusiasm for trials there "may have something to do with the number of whisky distilleries", we like to think that this bespeaks a start at renewal, in some measure at least, of Britannia ruling the waves. Perhaps the occasional gusts of hot air from Ottawa may waft across the Atlantic to contribute!

From the Weekly Telegraph, No. 395, February 17 - 23, 1999:
Polio jabs may have caused cancer - by Robert Matthews
Mass vaccination campaigns of the Fifties and sixties may be causing hundreds of deaths a year because of a cancer-causing virus which contaminated the first polio vaccine. Known as SV40, the virus came from dead monkeys whose kidney cells were used to culture the first Salk vaccines.
Doctors estimate that the virus was injected into tens of millions before being detected and screened out in 1963.
A new study of the effects of SV40 points to disturbing evidence that the monkey virus causes a number of human cancers. It concludes that there is "compelling" evidence linking SV40 to mesothelioma, a once-rare type of lung cancer whose prevalence is increasing rapidly. Dr. Janet Butel, of the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, lead author of the study, told The Sunday Telegraph: "I feel strongly that research is warranted to determine how common human infections by SV40 may be, and what factors might predispose individuals to SV40-related tumours."
Her study, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, also suggests that the monkey virus may be passing from those given the contaminated vaccine to their children, spreading the risk still further.
Dr. Butel said: "I believe SV40 is present in the human population today and is being spread by an unknown route."
The Sunday Telegraph has learnt that scientists in Britain have joined an international effort to confirm the findings. Prof. Gordon McVie, director-general of the Cancer Research Campaign, says researchers have so far uncovered evidence linking SB40 to a number of cancers, including brain tumours and bone cancer.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said it was aware that SV40 had contaminated early polio vaccines but there was no evidence that the virus caused tumours.
COMMENT: We wonder if any comment is truly necessary! Mass dosage of the population using fluoride and army and school innoculations has always been subject to suspicions by a portion of the public, and every such revelation adds to the un-ease where "shots" are ordered to be administered. The banner front page headline in the same issue of The Weekly Telegraph as the above article states "Alarm over genetically modified foods...". Thank you! With the above considerations before us, we prefer to grow our own God-given supplies!!

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