The map and the territories

The publisher HarperCollins has been accused of publishing a book used by schools in the Middle East that contains a map in which Israel has been omitted.

I don't think they've just been accused, I think they've done it.



When I first saw the headline, I was hoping it was a weird computer glitch, but HarperCollins has defended it.

However, Collins Bartholomew, a subsidiary of HarperCollins, said that supplying maps including Israel would be “unacceptable” to customers in the Gulf countries and that the map was a response to “local preferences”.

Update: HarperCollins is withdrawing the atlases

“HarperCollins regrets the omission of the name Israel from their Collins Middle East Atlas," the statement from the U.S.-based publishing giant says. "This product has now been removed from sale in all territories and all remaining stock will be pulped. HarperCollins sincerely apologises for this omission and for any offence caused.”

I expect that the atlases which were distributed will become collectors items. I wonder what HarperCollins will do to supply atlases for the Gulf countries, or if they'll bail out on the contracts.

Engraving found on half-million year old shell

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429983.200-shell-art-made-300000-years-before-humans-evolved.html?full=true#.VKYB3THF-Sr

If you want to see the image in the article at a reasonable size, right click on it, then choose "view in new tab".

A shell etched by Homo erectus is by far the oldest engraving ever found, challenging what we know about the origin of art and complex human thought

THE artist – if she or he can be called that – was right-handed and used a shark's tooth. They had a remarkably steady hand and a strong arm. Half a million years ago, on the banks of a calm river in central Java, they scored a deep zigzag into a clam shell.

We will never know what was going on inside its maker's head, but the tidy, purposeful line (pictured above right) has opened a new window into the origins of our modern creative mind.

It was found etched into the shell of a fossilised freshwater clam, and is around half a million years old – making the line by far the oldest engraving ever found. The date also means it was made two to three hundred thousand years before our own species evolved, by a more ancient hominin, Homo erectus.

Link thanks to Mick Clancy, who usually posts excellent landscape photos.