A New Mozart Manuscript

 

And a chance to meet the maestro

Last year, staff members at a library in northwestern France discovered a yellowing piece of handwritten sheet music while sorting through their archives. This week, music scholars confirmed that the sheet is a previously unknown piece by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, probably composed during the last few years of his life.

The piece is only a few lines long, and Mozart evidently never completed it. But it still provides a rare glimpse into the mind of one of classical music's great geniuses.

In his all-too-short career, Mozart composed more than 600 musical works, including 41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, and 7 major operas. Then he died, under somewhat suspicious circumstances, at the tender age of 35. All of that music, and a bit of that biographical drama, have made him one of history's most famous composers. So today, let's tune in to Mozart's story.

Prodigious Talent

Born January 27, 1756, in Salzburg, Austria, Mozart showed serious musical skills by the time he was three years old. So his father, Leopold, a musician himself, decided to show off his son's talent and make a few bucks.

At six, the young Mozart performed for the Austrian empress. At seven, he toured Europe with his father and sister (a talented keyboard player). At eight, he composed his first symphony. By 13, he was back in Salzburg, working as the archbishop's concertmaster.

The following year, Mozart was commissioned to compose an opera seria (serious opera) in Milan. He also visited Vienna and Munich as a teen, always looking for work and constantly composing. From symphonies to sacred works to dance music, Mozart mastered the major musical forms of his era.

Many Notes, Not Enough Banknotes

At 21, Mozart traveled to Munich, Mannheim, and Paris, searching for professional prospects. He didn't find regular employment, but he did fall in love with a young singer, Aloysia Weber. Aloysia didn't return Mozart's affections, so a few years later, he married her sister, Constanze.

By then, Mozart had parted ways with the archbishop of Salzburg--permanently. According to the composer, he was dismissed "with a kick in the seat of the pants." He moved to Vienna, Austria's imperial (and musical) capital, and worked as a freelance composer, music teacher, and performer. Later he received a minor post at Emperor Joseph II's court, though the emperor evidently wasn't his biggest fan. After watching a Mozart opera, Joseph reportedly offered a simple critique: "Too many notes."

Elsewhere, Mozart's work was better received. So were a series of string quartets Mozart dedicated to his friend, Joseph Haydn, and a series of piano concertos he wrote to perform himself. Then came a series of great operas--The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Cosi Fan Tutte (1790)--not to mention symphonies, concertos, and other works, many of them masterpieces. Mozart earned acclaim and a decent living, but he spent lavishly and faced financial difficulties for the rest of his short life.

Death and Drama

Mozart died on December 5, 1791, not long after the premiere of his most successful opera yet, The Magic Flute. The cause of his death has been disputed for years--at least since the 1820s, when a rumor began to circulate that another composer, Antonio Salieri, had poisoned him.

That rumor inspired the dramatic end of Peter Shaffer's play Amadeus (and the Academy Award-winning movie based upon it). Yet there's almost no historical evidence to back it up. Scholarly inquiries have blamed typhus, streptococcus, and other natural ailments. We may never know the truth. But in any case, Mozart's masterful music endures.
 

Georgia on Our Minds

Modern Georgia has plenty of problems--including high unemployment, separatist movements, and an uneasy relationship with its much more powerful neighbor: Russia. Now, on top of all that, it faces war.

Early Friday, Georgian forces tried to seize control of South Ossetia, a breakaway region that lies within Georgia's borders but that, with Russian help, has maintained de facto independence since 1992. The Georgians succeeded, but only for a moment. Russian troops, tanks, and planes poured across the border and quickly drove the Georgians out.

By Sunday, the conflict had widened, with Russian planes bombing sites in Georgia's capital, Russian ships reportedly blockading one of Georgia's main ports, and Russian troops entering another breakaway region: Abkhazia. Russia says it intends to punish Georgia for its actions. We say it's clearly time to learn something about Georgia.

Georgia's Days of Yore

The ancient Greeks knew Georgia. So did the Romans. They conquered the region in 66 BC, and it remained under the sway of Roman and Byzantine emperors for centuries. Later, it became one of the first parts of the world to convert to Christianity--around AD 330. To this day, the vast majority of Georgians are Orthodox Christians.

Still, Georgia's rulers have often been Muslims. During the 7th century, invading Arabs set up an emirate in Tbilisi, Georgia's capital, and gave the place its modern name: "Georgia" is from "Jurj," the Arabic term for the region. The Georgians themselves call their country "Sakartvelo."

Between periods of foreign rule, native Georgians periodically managed to reassert control over their country. In fact, Georgia enjoyed a golden age between the 11th and 13th centuries. But the glory days came to an end when the Mongols invaded in 1236. A further indignity came in 1386, when Timur (a.k.a. Tamerlane) sacked Tbilisi. Georgia became a pawn in the struggles of more powerful neighbors, notably Safavid Iran and Ottoman Turkey.

Reds' Rise

At the start of the 19th century, Georgia's rulers were most concerned about their Iranian neighbors, and they turned to Russia for help. Russia's rulers responded by helping themselves to Georgia, annexing their smaller neighbor piece by piece. Eventually, Georgia's royals were deported, and the Georgian people underwent a process of "Russification" designed to erase their national identity.

Still, Georgian patriots dreamed of national independence. When Russia was embroiled in revolution in 1917, the Georgians seized the opportunity. After trying to align with their "Transcaucasian" neighbors (Armenia and Azerbaijan), they founded the independent Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918. Three years after that, the Red Army rolled in and made Georgia join the Soviet Union.

Rose Revolution

Georgia's next chance at independence came seven decades later, in 1991, when Mikhail Gorbachev was trying to keep the Soviet Union alive. That year, Georgia declared its independence and elected Zviad Gamsakhurdia as its first president. His rule ended with a brief civil war and a coup in 1992. Gorbachev's former foreign minister--Eduard Shevardnadze--then took over as president.

Shevardnadze had a reputation as a moderate, and at first he enjoyed broad popular support. He brought Georgia closer to the West, and hoped the nation would someday join both NATO and the European Union. But in 2003, crowds of rose-bearing protesters forced Shevardnadze to resign after an election beset by allegations of ballot fraud. This bloodless "Rose Revolution" brought current president Mikheil Saakashvili--another friend of the West--to power.

Still, the Rose Revolution didn't make everything in Georgia peachy. The economy has been growing, but poverty and unemployment are still problems. What's more, even as Georgia pulled away from Russia, two regions along the border--South Ossetia and Abkhazia--effectively broke away from Georgia. Both have since enjoyed de facto independence, preserved in part by the presence of Russian soldiers. Now, they've drawn Georgia and Russia into war.

--Mark Diller

What Is the G8?

Today, the world turns to Toyako, Japan, site of this year's G8 summit. On the Group of Eight's agenda: aid to Africa, food prices, climate change, and more. On our agenda: a look at what the G8 is and where it came from.

Basically, the Group of Eight is an ultra-exclusive club that every leader in the world would like to join. The club has no regular staff, no headquarters, and no budget. But membership does have its privileges: namely, a seat at the table where eight of the world's richest and most powerful nations address international economic and political issues.

G6, G7, G8 . . . G9?

There weren't always eight members. At the club's first official meeting, in 1975, there were only six: the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Germany, and France. French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing revved up the "G6" by inviting the leaders of the other five countries to a meeting outside Paris that focused on economic issues.

Why the economic focus? In many ways, the new G6 was a souped-up version of the "Library Group," an informal committee of senior financial officials that had been meeting since 1973 to grapple with issues in international capitalism. The Library Group started running as the G6 when heads of state started crashing the finance ministers' parties.

The G6 turned G7 when Canada got invited in 1976. The following year, the European Union became an official observer. The G7 grew to G8 when Russia joined in 1998, after a six-year courtship. Other leaders often get invitations to the party, but none has a seat at the members-only table, not even the ones with big economies and more than a billion people (sorry, India and China).

G-Force

As with any gathering of high-ranking executives, someone else has to do most of the actual work. In the case of the G8 (as in the case of K2), the heavy lifting falls mainly to "sherpas." Named for the Nepalese guides who show Western climbers how to summit Himalayan peaks, G8 sherpas (one per nation) meet four or five times a year, hammering out agendas and overseeing agreements.

Heads of state frequently show up for the annual G8 summit with full entourages. But only sherpas (and translators) are allowed at the closed-door meetings that count most. Since no video or audio recordings of the meetings are made, the sherpas' notes provide the only record of what gets said.

If leaders need pertinent information during the meeting, they can slip notes to their sherpas, who can answer by slipping notes back. If a sherpa doesn't have an answer, he or she can quietly slip out and pass the question on to a "sous-sherpa" (two per nation) waiting patiently outside.

G-Money

Experts disagree about the G8's importance. According to John Kirton, head of the G8 Research Group at the University of Toronto, "the G8 summit and supporting system have developed into the center of global governance, operating effectively, if largely invisibly, every day of the year." Others disagree, dismissing the G8 as a "ginger group," incapable of dealing with the world's real issues.

Either way, G8 membership is an enviable distinction. According to the World Bank, the G8 nations had a combined GDP of some $30 trillion in 2007. That means the G8 countries account for nearly half of the world's economic output.

Here's how the World Bank ranked the world's top 15 economies for 2007, as measured by GDP in U.S. dollars, adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP). The G8 countries are in italics. (Basically, a nation's GDP is the value of all the goods and services it produces in a year. Economists adjust GDP for purchasing power parity to account for the fact that a dollar buys more in some places than it does in others.)

GDP (PPP), in trillions of U.S. dollars

United States: 13.81
China: 7.06
Japan: 4.28
India: 3.09
Germany: 2.75
Russia: 2.09
United Kingdom: 2.08
France: 2.05
Brazil: 1.83
Italy: 1.78
Spain: 1.37
Mexico: 1.35
South Korea: 1.20
Canada: 1.18
Turkey: 0.90

--Steve Sampson

Seven Ideas That Set Us Free...

 

How freedom rings!

This July 4th, millions of Americans will mark our nation's 232nd birthday with fireworks, parades, and other celebrations of freedom. So today, we've got a special, double-length issue that explores what freedom really means--or at least what it meant to America's founders.

If you look back at America's early history, you'll discover at least seven different ideas about how people get to be free. Three make up a "Bill of Rights." Three make up a "Bill of Responsibilities." And one is the crucial hinge between them.

A Bill of Rights

By Law. Thomas Jefferson once wrote that a government's most sacred duty is "to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens." Toward that end, America's founders tried to create a political system that would guarantee equal protection under the law. We've been arguing about what "equal protection" should mean ever since.

Historically, equal protection means the rule of law itself, as opposed to the arbitrary whims of a king. Starting with the Magna Carta in 1215, English common law placed increasing restrictions on the rights of kings--and, by extension, on all other governments and governors. Kings lost the "divine right" to rule. Instead, the people agreed to abide by a set of common laws. They agreed to a "social contract."

Social contract theory was crucial to the American Revolution. But it was also crucial to the two 17th-century English revolutions that preceded it: the English Revolution and the Glorious Revolution. In fact, as late as the 1760s, American colonists phrased their objections to "taxation without representation" primarily in terms of the rights due them as "freeborn Englishmen."

By Nature. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This sentence--the first sentence of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence--is perhaps the most famous sentence in American political history.

The belief that we humans enjoy certain rights simply because we are human is central to what historians call the "liberal tradition" (not to be confused with today's liberal politics). Historically, "liberals" were suspicious of social institutions, like the state and church, that governed people's lives. They didn't believe those institutions had special insight into the proper moral order. Instead, they believed it's generally best to let people sort things out for themselves.

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty," wrote Jefferson, "than to those attending too small a degree of it." Still, Jefferson had more than pragmatic tradeoffs in mind when he wrote about unalienable rights and self-evident truths. By then, liberals generally believed that governments existed to preserve each individual's natural or God-given rights.

By Yourself. Individualism has played a crucial role in American self-understanding since the earliest days of the frontier. And where the liberal tradition is concerned primarily with restricting governments, the individualist tradition is concerned primarily with empowering individuals.

Individualism treats individuals and their rights as the central good, the core value against which all other values are measured. At its most extreme, it makes a virtue of selfishness. Yet it also demands that we all make the most of our lives, and not simply rely on others to take care of us. It demands independence--the sort of independence shown by yeoman farmers settling frontiers.

Of course, even America's frontier farming forefathers relied on the work of others, especially their wives and children. Their individualism was more an individualism of the family than of one person acting alone. This points to individualism's central tension: its place in the community. No one is an island. If the highest value is the individual, what do we do when "me and my rights" interfere with you and yours?

A Bill of Responsibilities

You Must . . . Be Reasonable. Plato's Republic-–perhaps the founding document of western political theory--argues that true freedom is more a matter of psychology than of politics. For Plato, freedom comes in the self-mastery people achieve when they submit fickle emotions and desires to the rule of reason. Plato wasn't alone in this. The Stoic philosophers of Rome pretty much believed the same thing.

For Plato and the Stoics, responsibly governing a state--governing other people-–presupposes self-governance. As Hamlet put it, "Give me that man that is not passion's slave, and I will wear him in my heart's core." Otherwise, by implication, I'll trust him as far as I can throw him.

Today, some people attack the idea that reason can, or even should, rule. They ask whether emotions and desires might not sometimes be better guides, especially in moral matters. Yet the ability to control oneself-–within reason-–remains a precondition for political participation to this day. People deemed insane, mentally deficient, or too young to reason are excluded from the political process.

Be Virtuous. We don't use the word "vice" much anymore--except for a squad in the police department. But ideas about virtue and vice were key to discussions of freedom during America's founding. Even Benjamin Franklin, no strict moralist, wrote, "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom."

According to Christian theology, we humans are enslaved by sin. We are servants of greed, ambition, and pride. Our only hope for true freedom lies, paradoxically, in becoming servants of God--or, more secularly, in submitting to a moral code. Thus the Puritans of Massachusetts espoused what John Winthrop called "a liberty to do only what is good," and contrasted this with any sort of liberty to do evil.

It's a distinction some of the founders would have made as well. Unfortunately, "a liberty to do only what is good" turns out to be quite compatible with severe (even "puritanical") restrictions on behavior, speech, and religion. But it doesn't have to extend that far. Isn't our fascination with political scandals at least in part a result of our belief that political leaders should be virtuous?

Be Political. In his Politics, Aristotle famously claimed that "man is a political animal"--and he didn't mean that we're a primate species that happens to vote every couple of years. His claim was that we realize the proper ends of our nature only through political engagement and action. If we want to realize our highest potential, we must be political.

This idea lies at the heart of what historians call the "republican tradition" (not to be confused with today's Republican Party), which extends back through America's founders to Renaissance Florence, ancient Rome, Aristotle's Athens, and beyond. In the republican tradition, freedom comes when we participate in the public life of our communities. We owe our communities this, as they couldn't exist without the hard work of at least some members.

Of course, the responsibility to be politically engaged implies the right to participate equally and freely in the political process. Just as importantly, however, it implies a duty to serve--not only in the voting booth, but also on juries, in the military, or wherever the community may need us. For "republicans," true freedom comes when we transcend personal interests to serve the community's greater good.

Because Economic Independence Means Freedom

Now, there's a catch to all this. Along with the English political theorists from whom they learned many of their lessons in government, America's founders generally believed that "dependents" had no real stake in the game--and were thus to be excluded from participation in public affairs. Thomas Jefferson, for example, argued that economic dependence produced "subservience and venality" and that it "suffocated the germ of virtue." Even working for wages was considered incompatible with real freedom.

So it should come as little surprise that property qualifications for voting were as prevalent in the early United States as they were in old England. To be politically free, one had to be economically free. Unfortunately, this was not a matter over which most people had any real control. Few if any opportunities existed for women, slaves, and indentured servants, who made up the majority of the population. People in these groups were economically dependent, and so they were considered incapable of political independence.

We no longer believe that owning property is a prerequisite for political participation. And we've learned that when we say "all men are created equal," we really mean "all people"--not just white men of means. But the importance of economic independence remains clear. After all, the idea of freedom is meaningless if we lack the means to enact and enjoy it.

10,000 Galaxies

No telescope has ever captured more cosmic beauty than the Hubble--or produced an image more humbling than the Hubble Ultra Deep Field. From the ground, the spot of space that Hubble's scientists studied for the image seems empty and desolate. But when Hubble focused its sensitive eyes there for a million seconds, 10,000 galaxies came into view--some more than 13 billion light years away. It's the farthest (and furthest back in time) that human eyes have ever seen.

One image, one spot of sky, 10,000 galaxies. That's humbling enough. But if a single image can reveal 10,000 galaxies, just how many galaxies are there? How many "billions and billions" of stars light the night sky?

Sucking the Universe through a Straw

Hubble scientists say their mind-boggling picture is like a "core sample" of the universe, made of light instead of Arctic ice. Imagine, the scientists say, that you're looking through an 8-foot-long soda straw, where each galaxy you see is a different distance from the Earth.

Remember, too, that you're looking back in time, as light from a galaxy 13 billion light years away takes 13 billion years to get here. Those 10,000 galaxies are spread both through space and 13 billion years of cosmic history--all packed into a slice of sky just one-tenth of the diameter of the full moon.

So, how many 8-foot-long straws would Hubble have to suck the universe through to taste the entire sky? According to the experts, about 12.7 million. They say the plucky telescope would need about a million years of uninterrupted time to make the images, too.

Cosmic Math

If each of those 12.7 million straws sucked in another 10,000 galaxies, we'd have about 127 billion galactic neighbors. Some estimates count on only 100 billion galaxies showing up in the census. Others think we'd find five times that.

It's best not to even think about how many stars that is. On a dark night in the country, you can see a few thousand. Yet astronomers guess there are anywhere from 100 billion to 1 trillion stars in our Milky Way galaxy alone. Multiply the low number by 100 billion galaxies and you get at least 10 sextillion stars. That's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

The real number could be ten times that. Or a hundred times that. Some NASA experts put the figure at a "zillion." No one knows. Astronomers are used to working with scary numbers, but when it comes to counting the stars in the firmament, most say that counting all the grains of sand from all the deserts and beaches of the world would be easier.

--Michael Himick

Examining Cancer...

 

Cancer, under the electron microscope

Senator Edward Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor this week, after being rushed to the hospital following a seizure last Saturday. Further tests will help determine a course of treatment, which may include surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

For far too many people, that diagnosis--"cancer"--strikes far too close to home. It's a disease that many of us know personally. But we still don't know enough. So today, let's examine cancer.

Selfish Cells

Your life depends on teamwork. You probably think of yourself as one creature, but you're actually a collection of trillions of living cells, each with a specific job to do and all working to keep the rest--and hence you--alive.

Cancer cells don't work for the team. In fact, they hurt it. They divide too much, splitting wildly into new cells faster than the normal cells around them. And they don't stop dividing, regardless of the damage they cause. They simply ignore the biological cues that tell your cells when to stop.

Eventually, this unchecked cell growth can lead to a tumor--a semiautonomous mass of tissue that serves no productive purpose and that may, through its growth, damage surrounding cells. Worse still, unlike normal cells, a cancer cell can detach from its neighbors and travel to other parts of your body, causing even more damage someplace else.

The worse the cancer gets, the more the cancer cells tend to take an undifferentiated, "immature" form. Your body contains 220 different types of cells, each with a specific job to do and a form that follows that function. Cancer cells, however, are both incapable of doing a useful job and increasingly aggressive.

In the Genes

Cancer cells get this way because they're broken. Your cells work by following specific instructions. These instructions are found in each cell's nucleus, laid out in sequences of DNA called genes. Each of your genes--and there are tens of thousands of them--contains a code that tells a cell how to do a specific job.

At least two of these gene types, proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes, can cause serious trouble if they get messed up, or mutate. Proto-oncogenes regulate when, how, and how much your cells divide. Tumor suppressor genes help keep this process in line and can put the brakes on cellular reproduction if necessary. They're also the genes that tell your cells how to fix damaged genes.

With an unlucky mutation or two, proto-oncogenes can turn into oncogenes (basically, genes that cause cancer). The affected cell becomes hyperactive, and divides free of the usual constraints. Fortunately, your tumor suppressor genes can still slam on the brakes, repair the DNA, or call for the ultimate sacrifice: apoptosis, or "cell suicide." When a cell's DNA sustains so much damage that it is beyond repair, a healthy cell still thinking of the team can destroy itself to prevent greater problems.

But if genetic errors prevent your tumor suppressor genes from doing their job, too, troublemaking oncogenes are more likely to cause cancer. And that's why cancer tends to strike older people. It takes more than one genetic mutation to make a cancer cell, and those mutations can take a long time to occur. (Unfortunately, some people are born with some mutations already.)

When Good Genes Go Bad

There are almost as many ways in which genes can go bad as there are genes involved in cancer. Molecular mutations can change your DNA sequence, scrambling the code and turning healthy genes into oncogenes. Or, errors in cell division can cause entire genes to move to a new location, get repeated, or be deleted altogether.

Sometimes, these mutations are hereditary. Other times, they happen over your own lifetime. They could be random genetic accidents, or caused by environmental exposure to carcinogens, like cigarette smoke and the UV radiation in sunlight. Even certain viral infections can lead to cancer.

In fact, part of what makes cancer so tough to cure is that it isn't a single disease with a single cause. The word "cancer" actually covers more than 100 distinct diseases, all characterized by out-of-control cell growth. Because the diseases are different, treatments that are effective for one aren't necessarily effective for others. The weapon we need to kill cancer once and for all may be an entire arsenal.
 

 Cuba's New Boss 

Zoom in on Cuba
Zoom out on the Caribbean

For the first time in half a century, Cuba has a new leader--though he has the same last name as the old leader: Castro. Last week, 81-year-old Fidel Castro, announced that he was stepping down as Cuba's president. On Sunday, Cuba's parliament dutifully picked Fidel's younger brother, 76-year-old Raul, to be the nation's new president.

The change came as no surprise. Fidel "temporarily" passed the reigns of power to Raul 19 months ago and hasn't been seen in public since. Before that, Raul Castro was Cuba's No. 2 figure. In fact, he's been a key player in the nation's communist revolution from the start.

Same as the Old Boss?

Still, pundits and policy wonks are buzzing about the changes Cuba's leadership change might bring. Some even wonder about the possibility of a thaw in relations with the United States, which has enforced an economic embargo against Cuba since 1961.

That was the same year the United States backed the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a botched attempt to overthrow Fidel's government (which had overthrown a U.S.-backed regime two years earlier). Then came the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war and convinced many Americans never to trust Fidel Castro, who was allowing the Soviet Union to build nuclear missile bases just 90 miles (145 km) from the United States.

U.S.-Cuba relations have hardly improved since. Whether they will with a new Castro in charge remains to be seen. Meanwhile, we decided it was time to size up contemporary Cuba and to put its current news in historical context. Tomorrow and Wednesday, we'll look back at Cuba's history, from ancient times to Castro's rise. Today, we'll size up the island nation by the numbers.

Cuba, By the Numbers

42,800 – Cuba's total area, in square miles (110,860 sq km). That makes Cuba a little smaller than Pennsylvania and a little larger than Iceland. Cuba is the largest country in the Caribbean by land area.

11.4 million – Cuba's total population. That makes Cuba a bit more populous than Greece or Portugal and a bit less populous than Pennsylvania or Ohio.

1.4 million – Number of Cubans in the United States, including people born in Cuba and people born elsewhere who identify themselves as "of Cuban origin" (according to a 2004 U.S. Census report). More than two-thirds of these folks live in Florida, where new refugees arrive daily.

One-third – Conservative estimate for the percentage of Cuba's gross domestic product (GDP) that disappeared between 1989 and 1993, when aid from the Soviet Union and other communist countries dried up. Basically, a nation's GDP is the value of all the goods and services it produces in a given year. Without communist backers and buyers--and with the U.S. embargo tightening around it--Cuba's economy took a fall from which it is still struggling to recover.

165th out of 169 – Cuba's rank on the "Worldwide Press Freedom Index," published by Reporters without Borders. Cuba placed just above Iran and just below Burma. In addition to repressing the press, the Cuban government stands accused of multiple human rights abuses.

99.8 percent – Cuba's literacy rate, according to the CIA. Though freedom is in short supply, both education and health care have long been priorities in Cuba. Cuba's infant mortality rate is lower than that of the United States, and Cuba now exports doctors to Venezuela, which sends oil in return.

Great White Hunters

An Austrian man died this week after being bitten by a shark not far from the Bahamas--in waters that had been baited to make it more likely that he and other divers would come face to face with sharks.

The incident launched a worldwide debate among divers, conservationists, underwater photographers, and other shark enthusiasts about whether such "uncaged" dives with sharks should be allowed. While they debated the pros and cons of close encounters with ocean predators, we decided to learn more about the scariest shark of them all: the great white.

Feel the Fear

Known to scientists as Carcharodon carcharias, the great white shark is one of the most feared predators on Earth. Spanning up to 20 feet (6 meters) and weighing up to 4,000 pounds (1,800 kg), it is built to kill.

It primarily likes seals, sea lions, turtles, smaller sharks, and other fine-flavored denizens of the deep. If you're an animal on that list and a great white gets a whiff of your succulent aroma, you're in a sea of trouble.

A Nose for Trouble

Great whites have a highly acute sense of smell. Their nostrils, called nares, aren't used for breathing--that's what gills are for. Instead, white sharks use their nares to sniff the water, picking up scents at a distance of a quarter-mile (0.4 km) or more, and then tracking them to their source.

A big part of every great white's brain is dedicated to sniffing. If you're a prey animal and you're bleeding, don't bother looking for a Band-Aid. A great white can smell extremely small amounts of blood in the water from a long way off--and it figures wounded prey is easy prey.

An Eye for the Fishies

The great white's eyesight is also excellent for hunting. Like cats, great whites come equipped with a tapetum lucidum (literally, "bright carpet"), a special reflective layer behind the retina that magnifies light and enables the shark to hunt in the dark. This adaptation makes shark eyes several times more light-sensitive than human ones.

Great whites even have extra shark-senses to help them zero in on dinner. Their snouts are dotted with small pits, called ampullae of Lorenzini, that detect the electrical fields of fish and other creatures. And, running in a "lateral line" down each side of their bodies are motion sensors. Great whites can still sense what they can't see.

The Better to Eat You With, My Dear

Still, the great white's real weapon of bass destruction is a terrifying set of teeth, which can grow to a length of three inches (8 cm). Shaped like triangular, serrated blades, they're arranged in six rows of around 26 teeth each, though these numbers can vary from specimen to specimen. A great white sheds and regrows its teeth throughout its life, ensuring a fresh and healthy supply for every feeding frenzy.

A great white's bite packs tremendous power, and in the case of larger and potentially dangerous prey, it typically takes one bite, retreats, and waits for the animal to bleed to death before settling down to dinner. They're fearsome predators, no doubt. But they're more into ambush attacks than epic battles between creatures at sea.

Scary as they are, we probably have less to fear from great whites than they have to fear from us. They're now protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. Meanwhile, shark attacks on humans are rare. Statistics say you're more likely to get zapped by lightning--or killed by a deer crashing into your car--than you are to be mercilessly hunted by a shark.

--Jeffery Vail

Archaeologists in Mexico City have dug up the remains of an 800-year-old Aztec pyramid--a structure so old it may force scholars to revise their understanding of the Aztecs' origins.

The 36-foot (11-meter) pyramid stands in Mexico City's Tlatelolco area. Centuries ago, Tlatelolco was an independent Aztec city, but it was absorbed by the expanding Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, long before the Spanish first arrived in Mexico 500 years ago.

Tlatelolco is already famous in archaeological circles for another pyramid (and in other circles for a massacre of student protesters in 1968). Scholars previously dated its founding to 1325, the same year the Aztecs supposedly broke ground on Tenochtitlan. Now it looks like they may have to revise their timeline. While the experts work out the details, let's look at the big picture. Who were the Aztecs?

Sometime before the 14th century, an alliance of tribes emerged in central Mexico that collectively came to be known as the "Aztecs." Chief among the tribes was the Mexica, from whose name "Mexico" derives.

Over the next several centuries, the Aztecs and their allies built an empire that spanned much of modern Mexico. They followed a sophisticated calendar and cooked up lots of cocoa-filled treats. Yet their empire crumbled quickly when the Spanish conquistador Hernándo Cortés invaded in 1519.

Cortés had just a few hundred men, but he cunningly exploited both his superior military technology (notably, guns and horses) and the troops of Aztec enemies (notably, the Tlaxcalan)--not to mention a smallpox epidemic that ravaged the Aztec population. He destroyed Tenochtitlan and built Mexico City in its place. That's why, today, the Mexican capital is an archaeological treasure trove--in addition to being one of the world's most populated places.

Agricultural Wealth

Of course, mention the Aztecs and many minds immediately picture fierce warriors, or priests practicing human sacrifice. It's true that valor was central to Aztec culture. And it's probably true that Aztec priests regularly engaged in ritual human sacrifice--though scholars argue over the details.

Still, the Aztecs' political success stemmed at least as much from skillful farming as it did from fierce fighting or repulsive rituals. Aztec agronomists developed sophisticated irrigation and crop rotation techniques, used dikes and ditches to reclaim swamplands, and terraced barren hillsides into productive fields.

Result: crop yields that fed the most densely populated place in Mesoamerican history--Tenochtitlan--and helped generate the wealth to build an empire. Behind every fierce warrior, in other words, was an even fiercer farmer.

Down Under Overview

 

A glimpse at Australia
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Friends, Australians went to the polls on Saturday and pummeled Prime Minister John Howard and his conservative coalition government. The prime ministry, and control of Australia's parliament, will now pass to Kevin Rudd and his Labor Party, who want to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, put a computer on every secondary-schooler's desk, and redeploy some of Australia's troops in Iraq.

"Ruddslide"

The election, dubbed a "Ruddslide" by the Australian media, marks a major shift in Australian politics. Prime Minister Howard has held the office since 1996--a longer run than any other Australian prime minister except one. Now he may become just the second sitting prime minister in Australian history to lose a race for his own seat in parliament (several media outlets have already called the race against him, but the results aren't official yet).

While Australians prepare for a governing change, let's take a quick trip to the continental country and size it up by the numbers. To our readers in Australia: sorry if these numbers seem obvious to you. But remember, most KnowledgeNews readers--and writers--live 10,000 miles (16,000 km) away. Hey, at least we're not still calling your homeland terra australis incognita ("unknown land of the south")--which, after all, is where the name "Australia" came from.

Down Under, By the Numbers

2,967,910 – Australia's total area, in square miles (7,686,850 sq km). That makes it just a bit smaller than the 48 contiguous United States. It also makes Australia the world's sixth largest country--geographically speaking--after Russia, Canada, China, the United States, and Brazil.

35 – Percentage of Australia that is so dry it is "effectively desert," according to the Australian government. Another 35 percent of the continent gets less than 20 inches (50 cm) of rain per year and is classified as arid or semi-arid. That's one reason most Australians live near the nation's 16,000 miles (25,760 km) of coastline--and especially along the southeastern coast, where the climate is temperate.

21 million – Australia's total population. That's about one-third as many people as live in the United Kingdom, which covers an area about one-thirtieth the size. Nearly as many people live in the state of New York.

4 million – Population of the Sydney metropolitan area, Australia's largest. Sydney is the state capital of New South Wales and the site of Australia's first European colony, established by Britain's Arthur Phillip in 1788. Australia's second-largest city is Melbourne. Its national capital is Canberra, a city built for that purpose as a compromise between Sydney and Melbourne. Construction of Canberra began in 1913--12 years after the six British colonies Down Under first became the "Commonwealth of Australia."

40,000 – Minimum number of years that Australia's aboriginal inhabitants have called the place home. The original aboriginals must have somehow traveled more than 50 miles over open sea all those years ago. Today, nearly 500,000 Australians identify themselves as "indigenous." Some consider "aborigine" a slur--and some don't like "aboriginal" much better.