The man who created Atlas

In February 1544, an Hungarian court charged a Flemish cartographer for heresy. Gerard Mercator, the cartographer in question, was sent to a poky prison cell in the outskirts of Budapest. He had powerful friends though and was out of prison in seven months. But the Catholic orthodoxy remained close on his heels and Mercator had to move to Protestant Germany to pursue his map making quests.

Science and Technology - Briefs

GEOLOGY Earth’s magnetic powers

Letters

AUTONOMY OR CORRUPTION?

Science and Technology - Briefs

ARCHAEOLOGY Dino with a horn

Letters

MANAS SHOWS SIGNS OF RECOVERY

Fascism on the internet

It’s been mayhem and murder on the web with the US government and the McCarthy-like Senator Joe Lieberman, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, getting websites to pull the plug on WikiLeaks. Not all of what they did was sane or even legal. First, Lieberman, or the Obama administration acting through him, issued a warning to Amazon.com to cut off WikiLeaks. Just a phone call from the office of the senator with right inflexion was enough to do the job.

Science and Technology - Briefs

TECHNOLOGY Sound, light and gold

Internet at its peak

“Today we made the world’s highest video call from Mount Everest base camp.”

Net bonding

On November 10 more than 70 websites in the UK defied police rulings to issue guidance to student protesters on avoiding arrest.

Science and Technology - Briefs

LIFE SCIENCES Free access