Manuscripts 'treated as fossils'

[Allan Edels <edels@msn.Com>]

Manuscripts 'treated as fossils':

A palaeontologist has come up with a novel way of studying historical
manuscripts, by treating them as fossils from an extinct species. 

John Cisne, writing in Science magazine, says manuscripts from the
Middle Ages have a lot in common with animal populations. 

For this reason, he claims, he can work out how many copies of a
manuscript once existed and how regularly they were destroyed, simply by
applying a biological model. 

Historians have cautiously welcomed this rare link between the arts and
sciences.

..............................................................

Full story at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4294943.stm


Allan Edels

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