Indigenous Women In Bolivia Use Ancient Knitting Skills To Weave Devices For Congenital Heart Disease

Indigenous Women In Bolivia Use Ancient Knitting Skills To Weave Devices For Congenital Heart Disease

To help the growing number of children born with heart defects, indigenous Bolivian knitters are putting their age-old craft to a more modern use. The Aymara women, who have been knitting intricate and distinct hats, sweaters, and blankets for centuries, are now using their skill to produce an innovative medical product that can seal holes in a baby’s heart.

The device, called Nit-Occlud was developed by cardiologist Dr. Franz Freudenthal. After setting up a clinic in La Paz for children with heart defects, Freudenthal knew he must develop a simple, inexpensive solution to help treat more patients. The occluder, the device's more common name, looks like a top hat and can be inserted into the heart without surgery to help fix the problem.

Glamour charts the evolution of the bra over the past 500 years in 2 minutes | Daily Mail Online

Glamour charts the evolution of the bra over the past 500 years in 2 minutes

Whether they were meant to flaunt your breasts - or hide them - the first bras date back to ancient times, and like most fashions, they reflect the social and economic changes of that era. 

Today women have the option of pushing-up, covering-up, and everything in between, and a new video created by Glamour charts the evolution of the bra over the past 500 years. 

Beginning with the constricting mamillare from the Roman Empire and ending with a hypothetical design meant for robots in 2100, the clip highlights the prominent styles and history of the bras that debuted in various eras.

Women hairstyles were more extraordinary in ancient times

Study: Women hairstyles were more extraordinary in ancient times - Daily Sabah

An archaeological team examining archaeological findings discovered ancient hairstyles. Reliefs found on rock tombs reveal the extravagant braided hairstyles of women living 2,400 years ago, which by today's standards might be considered strange. Professor Nevzat Çelik of Akdeniz University Archaeology Department said it is possible to understand the lifestyle of people living during this time by examining ancient buildings and artifacts found in Lycian tombs. Following a comprehensive study, the team found new information about Lycian lifestyles and social hierarchies.

Carole Levin: A 'queen' of sorts in her medieval scholarship

Carole Levin: A 'queen' of sorts in her medieval scholarship 

Carole Levin is one of those people who seems to bring light into the room when she enters.

“Ph.D.,” “medieval” or “historical scholar” are not words likely to race to mind upon meeting her. With her radiant smile and youthful springy hairdo, one might not peg her as a Willa Cather professor of history at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the past 13 years or director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program for the last seven. But she is both.

When she was a little girl growing up in the Chicago area, her father, who worked at an ad agency and taught college English, and her mother, who was an artist and homemaker, made sure she and her three sisters got to the public library. During a weekly visit when she was 10 years old, she found a book about one of the world’s greatest monarchs, England’s Queen Elizabeth I, who ruled alone from 1558 to 1603. Years later, she says, “Elizabeth Tudor is a woman who captures the imagination and does not let it go.”

Rediscovered cast skull of "father of English history"

Thieving monks and cathedral tombs: Rediscovered cast skull of "father of English history" could solve medieval burial mystery | Culture24
A Leicester academic says she has rediscovered the cast of the skull of The Venerable Bede – one of the most influential and idolised scholars in medieval Europe, known as the “father of English history" – in the anatomical collections of the University of Cambridge.
                                      
The front & back view of the cast of the skull of Bede, engraved V. Beda© J Story

The author of The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which is regarded as perhaps the most important source for understanding early British history and the establishment of Christianity in England, was buried in a tomb in Durham Cathedral following his death in 735. But the location and authenticity of his skull has been the subject of fierce debate since the excavation of his venerated tomb by Dr James Raine in 1831, laying the bones out in a new burial in the Galilee Chapel at the cathedral’s western end.