Chinese made and wore makeup over 1,000 years ago
China had a thriving cosmetics industry more than a thousand years ago, archaeologists have found.
The industry, which flourished between 618 and 907AD, produced a range of products including moisturisers made of animal fat and eyebrow enhancers using graphite powder. The products were commonly used by the wealthy non-elite of the Tang dynasty, according to a new study published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
The study assessed thousands of tombs in the Tang dynasty’s capital city of Xian and found that Chinese living there not only developed cosmetic recipes but also “optimised” them.
A moisturiser product identified as ruminant fat, for example, contained a small amount of brassicaceae seed oil, which would have made it easier to spread than plain ruminant fat in the cold, dry winters of northern China.
“This indicates that the recipe of the moisturiser had been optimised,” the study said.
Archeologists also found evidence of the use of coloured cosmetics . They found some organic residues in shells made from a mixture of vegetable oil, moths, and plant extracts.
Another skincare product found at the site was likely made from a mixture of rosin and plant pigments.
The study noted that people in the Tang dynasty used products similar to today’s lipstick and blusher. “A piece of graphite ore was used as an eyebrow cosmetic and a mixture of cinnabar and animal glue was used as a lipstick or blusher,” it explained.
Some of the items, though, may have contained a mineral of mercury, which would have been toxic to its users.
“The findings suggest that the cosmetics were diverse and made from a wide range of raw materials, including plants, animals and minerals, during the Tang dynasty in China,” the study noted.
China detains Taiwanese iPhone factory workers for ‘breach of trust’
Chinese authorities have detained four employees of Taiwanese Apple supplier Foxconn under “quite strange” circumstances.
Police in Zhengzhou city of Henan province held the factory workers on an offence equivalent to Taiwan’s “crime of breach of trust”, the island’s mainland affairs council said.
The council confirmed all four employees were Taiwanese and claimed that the “circumstances of the case are quite strange”.
The workers have been detained since January, Taiwanese media reported.
The council quoted Foxconn as saying that “the four employees did not harm the company’s interests”.
“This has seriously damaged the confidence of companies. We call on relevant departments on the other side of the Taiwan Strait to investigate and deal with it as soon as possible,” it said.
Taiwanese conglomerate Foxconn, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of consumer electronics, is known for being Apple’s main contractor.
The workers were detained amid rising tensions between Beijing and Taiwan, with the Chinese military routinely flying aircraft into the island’s airspace. China regards Taiwan as part of its territory. The two split in 1949 after a civil war and have no official relations but are linked by billions of dollars in trade and investment.
Taiwanese businesses have invested billions of dollars in China since the country began landmark economic reforms four decades ago, drawn by a common culture and language and much lower costs.
Taiwan’s government earlier this year raised its travel warning for China, telling its citizens not to go unless absolutely necessary, following a threat from Beijing to execute those deemed “diehard” Taiwan independence supporters.
A court in Wenzhou sentenced Taiwanese activist Yang Chih-yuan to nine years in prison in September for secession.
Chinese authorities also detained an executive of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics while trying to leave the country, according to media reports.
Last year, Foxconn offices in Guangdong and Jiangsu provinces were searched by Chinese tax officials when founder Terry Gou announced his bid to become the president of Taiwan.
Pope hails ‘two greedy Yorkshiremen’ after England stun Pakistan
Ollie Pope paid tribute to a “phenomenal” England performance and “two greedy Yorkshiremen” after his side recorded another magical overseas win in Multan.
Some of the country’s most astonishing victories on the road have come recently, in Rawalpindi two years ago when they maintained a brutal scoring rate of 6.93 to conquer a dead pitch and in January in Hyderabad, where they overturned a 190-run deficit at halfway to stun India.
Now their Asian odyssey is a trilogy, after they inflicted another sensational defeat on Pakistan in their own back yard.
England spent 149 energy-sapping overs in the field at the start of the match, watching their hosts stack up 556 runs but somehow showed the resolve to respond with 823 for seven and a lead of 267.
Harry Brook feasted on 317, England’s highest individual score in 34 years, and Joe Root made a career-best 262 to set the game up for the bowlers and by the fifth morning skipper Pope was celebrating victory by an innings and 47 runs.
It is the first time any team had ever won by such a margin having conceded 500.
“Everyone knows what a special win that was. It’s been a serious effort,” said Pope.
“Whenever you get 550, whatever pitch it is, it’s always a good score, but we also knew if we batted like we know we can then we can go big.
“We’ve got two greedy Yorkshiremen and they did exactly that. What they did was seriously special and a joy to watch.
“It’s been phenomenal. You take confidence from those previous performances when you’re that far behind in the game but the main thing for us in that changing room is that we try not to think about the end result too much during the game.
“Especially if we’re behind we know if we can rock up, give absolutely 100 per cent, chase the ball as hard as we can in the field and do those small things, then the bigger things will look after themselves.
“That’s what has allowed us to go and put together these performances and good wins in situations where, in the past, we potentially wouldn’t have got over the line.”
PA
Picasso’s ‘Motherhood’ covered with picture of Gazan mother and child
Two members of the British civil resistance group Youth Demand have been arrested after they pasted a photo of a mother and child from Gaza over Pablo Picasso’s painting Motherhood at the National Gallery on 9 October to protest arms sales to Israel.
The activists who put the photo on the protective glass of Picasso’s 1901 work and dumped red paint on the floor were National Health Services worker Jai Halai, 23, and Politics and International Relations student Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, 21. The photo they used was taken by Palestinian journalist Ali Jadallah at Al-Shifa Hospital in March.
Museum security detained the activists and took the photo off. The museum confirmed that there was no damage to the artwork.
“Our government is arming Israel to carry out a genocide against Palestinians and killing without restrain in Lebanon. It cannot be all carrots and no sticks: a two-way arms embargo is the least Britain can do to stop displacement, destruction and death,” a Youth Demand spokesperson said.
“I’m taking action with Youth Demand because at this point it’s been over one year of seeing my colleagues in the healthcare field decimated. Decimated by bombs, by bullets and by having to operate, with no medical equipment, on starved children,” Halai said in a recorded video explaining the rationale of the protest.
“We need a two-way arms embargo on Israel now; 87% of the British public want this and never before have they been more disillusioned with our government and political class who do not represent us,” Halai continued. “We need a revolution in our democracy.”
Rosenfeld said: “I am taking action because as a Jew, I feel like it’s my duty to call out the genocide being committed in Gaza. I want the world to know this isn’t in the Jewish name and I want to see a free Palestine. When Keir Starmer says Britain stands with Israel he’s wrong. We know very well that this is a genocide, not ‘self defence’ and we, as the people of Britain, say enough is enough.”
A spokesman for the National Gallery said: “At approximately 11.50am this morning, two people entered Room 43 of the National Gallery. One was apprehended after initially attempting to attach what appeared to be a piece of paper to an artwork. Some paint was thrown on the floor.
“Police attended and arrested the pair. The room reopened to the public at 2.30pm. There has been no damage to any paintings.”
The incident comes weeks after two Just Stop Oil activists were sentenced for pouring soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting at the National Gallery in 2022.
The activists had come close to “destroying” the masterpiece and caused up to £10,000 worth of damage to the gold-coloured frame worth £28,000.
Hours after the sentencing, three other Just Stop Oil activists threw soup over the same painting as well as another nearby.
The protest by Youth Demand comes as the death toll from Israel’s assault on Gaza crossed 42,000, according to the Palestinian territory’s health ministry, and the Israeli military continues to relentlessly bomb Lebanon and Syria, killing hundreds of civilians.
In September, the UK government suspended around 30 of its 350 arms export licences to Israel citing a “clear risk” they could be used to breach international humanitarian law relating to the treatment of Palestinian detainees and the supply of aid to Gaza.
Prime minister Keir Starmer ruled out a total ban on arms sales to Israel, however, claiming a complete ban would cover arms being used for defensive purposes.
Opera of live sex and piercing leaves 18 theatregoers ill with nausea
At least 18 theatregoers in Germany needed medical treatment over the weekend after they watched a radical feminist opera featuring live piercings, explicit sexual acts, rollerblading nuns, and real and fake blood.
Sancta, which has several content warnings about sex and mutilation, held its first shows at the Stuttgart opera house over the weekend.
Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger’s production is based on a controversial 1920s expressionist opera called Sancta Susanna by Paul Hindemith which examined the relationship between celibacy and lust in Christianity.
“On Saturday we had eight and on Sunday we had 10 people who had to be looked after by our visitor service,” Sebastian Ebling, opera spokesperson, told the newspaper Stuttgarter Zeitung.
“We recommend that all audience members once again very carefully read the warnings so they know what to expect. If you have questions, speak to the visitor service,” Ebling added. “And when in doubt during the performance, it might help to avert your gaze.”
According to local media, the 18 audience members felt nauseous while watching the opera and needed first aid. Ebling said three of those who needed help felt so ill a doctor had to be called in.
Any assumption that reports about audience members taking sick would deter others from going to the show have been proven wrong, considering the five remaining shows in Stuttgart and two more scheduled at Berlin’s Volksbühne in November have sold out.
A warning on the official theatre portal cautions that the show includes “explicit sexual acts as well as images and descriptions of violence”, real blood and stage blood, piercing and wounding, nudity, strobe effects, high volume and incense. The directors state that the show may be traumatic for audience members.
Holzinger, 38, is famous for shows which include nudity, body horror, acrobatics, and which make references to classical literature and mordant feminist commentary.
Sancta, Holzinger’s first opera, premiered at the Mecklenburg state theatre in Schwerin in May and left Catholic leaders distinctly unhappy.
Archbishop of Salzburg Franz Lackner said the show was “seriously offensive to believers’ religious feelings and convictions”.
“It is a disrespectful parody of the Holy Mass, which is the heart of the faith, and not only in the Catholic understanding,” said Hermann Glettler, the Bishop of Innsbruck.
Scientists invent real-life Spider-Man sticky-web gadget
Scientists have developed a fluid that turns into a strong sticky fibre when shot out of a gadget to lift objects several times its weight – a breakthrough inspired by comic book superhero Spider-Man.
Researchers have long sought to create strong fibres that could be deployed as tethers, inspired by the silk secreted by moths, spiders and several other insects.
But developing such fibres with the stiffness, elasticity and adhesive properties of spider silk has been a challenge – until now, researchers at Tufts University say.
Fortified with the right additives, a silk moth protein, called fibroin, shot through a narrow needle can form a tough sticky fibre, according to a new “accidental breakthrough” described in Advanced Functional Materials. “I was working on a project making extremely strong adhesives using silk fibroin and while I was cleaning my glassware with acetone, I noticed a web-like material forming on the bottom of the glass,” study co-author Marco Lo Presti said.
Initially attempting to replicate spider threads, researchers noticed that fibroin solutions formed a semi-solid gel when exposed to chemicals like ethanol or acetone over several hours. But with the chemical dopamine, the solidification process occurred “almost immediately” to create high-tensile sticky fibres.
The dopamine mixture appeared to accelerate silk protein’s transition from liquid to solid by taking away water from it, scientists say.
They also found a thin stream of the silk solution, surrounded by a layer of acetone, turned into a sticky solid when shot through a special needle. As the acetone evaporated in the air, the fibre attached to any object it contacted.
Adding chitosan, a protein found in insect exoskeletons, made the fibres up to 200 times more tensile, while chemicals like borate buffer seemed to increase the adhesiveness about 18-fold, scientists say.
The diameter of the fibres can be controlled to range from the width of a human hair to about half a millimetre, depending on the bore of the needle.
The fibres shot this way can pick up objects over 80 times their weight under various conditions, scientists say. In various tests, the fibres picked up a “steel bolt, a laboratory tube floating on water, a scalpel partially buried in sand and a wood block from a distance of about 12 centimetres”.
Although spider silk is still some 1,000 times stronger, scientists say, the new fibres can be improved for various applications. “This process can be finely tuned to achieve a controlled fabrication of instantaneously formed adhesive hydrogel fibres,” Dr Dr Lo Presti said.
“It’s really a superhero-inspired material.”
Han Kang: South Korean author wins Nobel Prize in literature
South Korean writer Han Kang has been announced as the winner of the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature.
The author of The Vegetarian, The White Book, Human Acts and Greek Lessons was praised for “intense poetic prose that confronts historical traumas and exposes the fragility of human life”.
After three days of Nobel prizes honouring work in the sciences, the literature award was announced by the Nobel Committee at the Swedish Academy on Thursday. The writer said she had “just finished supper with her son” when the news broke.
In an interview with The Independent last year, the 53-year-old spoke about her writing process explaining, “Language was like a double-bladed sword that I really wanted to grasp, but it wasn’t possible.”
Kang said that the “omnipresence” of violence has concerned her since she was young. The daughter of novelist Han Seung-won, she was born in Gwangju, a provincial city near the tip of the Korean peninsula.
Her family moved to Seoul when she was nine, four months before her birthplace was devastated by the Gwangju uprising, when peaceful protestors and bystanders were killed.
At the age of 12, Kang discovered a book about the massacre hidden at home. In it were photographs of mutilated faces and bayoneted bodies.
“I felt the fear and shock deeply inside me. It made me think how far humanity can go and still be human,” she said, explaining that it has since influenced her work.
“That has always stayed with me and it’s something I have to constantly recreate. It’s a conundrum, a fundamental question within me, so it comes out in whatever I write.”
The literature prize has long faced criticism that it is too focused on European and North American writers of style-heavy, story-light prose. It has also been male-dominated, with just 17 women among its 119 laureates. The last woman to win was Annie Ernaux of France, in 2022.
Six days of Nobel announcements opened Monday with Americans Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun winning the medicine prize. Two founding fathers of machine learning, John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton, won the physics prize on Tuesday. On Wednesday, three scientists who discovered powerful techniques to decode and even design novel proteins were awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Additional reporting by agencies
Public outcry as zoo euthanises healthy lioness after partner’s death
A zoo in Australia has euthanised a pair of African lions after one of them suffered a medical episode, sparking a backlash on social media.
The Adelaide Zoo said Amani and her male partner Mujambi were euthanised on Thursday. “Both big cats are now at rest,” the zoo said.
Mujambi, 19, suffered a medical episode over the weekend and, after the veterinary team failed to improve his condition, the zoo management decided to euthanise the animal to spare it further suffering.
Amani, 23, the oldest lioness in the country, was put to sleep shortly after.
The zoo said the decision was made as “negative impacts” on Amani without her partner “outweighed any benefits of keeping the lioness alive”.
Amani and Mujambi had been together for 16 years and were “very closely bonded”. The zoo described Mujambi as a handsome lion with a beautiful mane despite his old age. “She swiped at him, growled and bossed him around, but she also wanted to be no further away from him than his shadow,” said zoo curator Deb Barry.
The African lions had lived beyond their average life expectancy in the wild of around 15 years, the zoo said. “Under human care in a zoo or safari park setting, lions can live into their 20s. At 23 and 19 both lions were in the latter stages of their lives,” it said.
Zoo director Phil Ainsley said the decision was taken after carefully examining options, including moving Amani to another zoo that houses her species.
“Tigers, we know, potentially can live in isolation. That’s not how it works for African lions,” he said. “Normally you’ll either get a pride or, as they get older, a couple living together.”
Moving Amani and integrating her into another pride or environment “was considered too risky and stress provoking”, he added.
Amani turned 23 in May and her birthday was celebrated by her keepers. She got to play with special pinatas. The zoo, which has over 3,000 animals, shared a video of her rolling on the ground with different balls on her birthday.
“Choosing when it’s the right time to say goodbye to an animal is a hardship but also a blessing,” Mr Ainsley said.
Amani was brought to the Adelaide zoo from Auckland in 2002 and Mujambi arrived five years later from New South Wales.
But despite the zoo’s explanation, the decision to kill the healthy lioness sparked outrage online, with many people asking: “Was it the only option?”
“I just don’t understand that this was the only option,” Facebook user Debi Ratta wrote. “Seems so very very extreme.”
“Why couldn’t you have got another mate for her? Just because she was the oldest in captivity doesn’t mean you had to kill her? Also a healthy animal being killed is cruelty. I will not be supporting the zoo ever again,” said another user.
“I just don’t understand why taking Amani’s life is justified because of being the only one left,” said Verity Anne.
“How long after the medical episode did you euthanise him?” asked Natasha Maree. “How do you know he wouldn’t have come around naturally?”
Responding to the backlash on Facebook, the zoo said the decision was “not taken lightly”. It said Amani, given her age, was experiencing a “number of age-related health issues that were impacting her wellbeing”.
“As an accredited zoo with a highly regarded ethics and welfare policy, based on Amani’s age, her own health issues and her strong bond with Mujambi, euthanasia was deemed to be in the best welfare outcome interests of Amani because of her strong bond with Mujambi and not with her keepers,” it said.
The zoo created a website, “Remembering African Lions Mujambi and Amani”, to honour the legacy of the animals and asked people to post messages for the support staff who cared for them.