THE SECRET FILES
Photo by Peter and Nejma Beard/Eurekavision
Out of Africa
The last thoughts of David Livingstone have been revealed for the first time, thanks to a new imaging technique. Livingstone was the missionary and explorer famously found by journalist Sir Henry Stanley in 1871 after a 10,000-kilometre trek through Africa. In his final days, Livingstone had run out of ink and writing paper, and took to scribbling with berry juice in the margins of books. These pages were sent to his friend Horace Waller, marked “for your eyes only”. Many were unreadable, but can now be revealed under exposure to different light, ranging from ultraviolet to infrared. They reveal a man suffering from fevers, haemorrhoids, bone-deep cuts, and railing against the evils of slavery.
www.LIVINGSTONEONLINE. UCL.AC.UK
Fresh fish
A mission to the depths of the North Atlantic has turned up several new species of sea creatures. These secrets of the deep were revealed as part of the MAR-ECO research project, and involved sending a remotely operated sub down more than 3.5 kilometres. This particular bottom-feeding specimen is a purple enteropneust acorn worm, of less than 10 cm long. “These worms are members of a little-known group of animals, close to the missing link in evolution between backboned and invertebrate animals,’’ reckons Professor Monty Priede of the University of Aberdeen. “They have no eyes, no obvious sense organs or brain but there is a head end, tail end and the primitive body plan of backboned animals is established.”
I spy?
The famous temptress shown here in 1910 is Mata Hari, who claimed to be a Javanese princess. But she was actually born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, in Friesland, in the north of The Netherlands. Hari kept her true identity secret, and found fame as an exotic dancer in bohemian Paris, where she also worked as a circus performer, as an artist’s model, and had a string of relationships with politicians and military officers from France, Germany and Russia. But her high profile was her downfall, and in 1917 she was executed by a French firing squad, under accusations (never proven) of spying for Germany.
Maze of maize
The Labyrinth of Barvaux in south-east Belgium, is more than it may at first seem. Rather than the usual collection of neatly trimmed privet hedges, it is constructed from corn, which is harvested at the end of September each year, and then grown into a new shape for the following spring. The 11-hectare maze also has wooden doors, which can only be opened by cracking a secret code.
Invisible insect
This secretive little chap is the Giant Prickly Stick Insect, which can grow up to 20 cm long. Endemic to Australia, the crafty beast is renowned for its camouflage skills, and has developed colouring to blend in with the trees and plants of Queensland and New South Wales, to avoid predators such as birds, rodents and reptiles. Its talent for hiding makes it notoriously tricky to study, and little is known of numbers in the wild.
