Israeli Scholar Says Nails Found by Simcha Jacobovici Not From Jesus' Crucifixion

Dr. Zvi Greenhut of the Israel Antiquities Authority reveals: the nails in the Tel Aviv University Medical School anthropology laboratory are not the missing nails from Caiaphas’Cave.

Nails claimed by film maker Simcha Jacobovici  to be from Caiaphas’Cave

Credit: Simcha Jacobovici

Dr. Greenhut, Head of the IAA Artifacts Treatment and Conservation Department, explains that the two nails shown in the film by director Simcha Jacobovici are nails that were stored in Professor Nicu Haas’ laboratory in the Jerusalem Medical School until the late 1970s, and their provenance is unknown.

Controversial documentary maker Simcha Jacobovici claims to have found the nails used to crucify Jesus Christ in his new film 'Nails of the Cross'.


Dr. Greenhut rejects the claims put forth by Simcha Jacobovici in a press conference held on April 13 in which Simcha maintains that he found the nails allegedly used to crucify Jesus inside an ossuary in a burial cave in Jerusalem.

Dr. Greenhut explains that in 1975 Professor Nicu Haas was severely injured in an automobile accident. He makes it clear that shortly thereafter, in the late 1970s, Joe Zias, Curator in charge of State of Israel archaeological collections and responsible for physical anthropology in the then Israel Department of Antiquities, was asked to transfer the nails from Professor Haas’ laboratory in the Jerusalem Medical School to the National Treasures, which was the responsibility of the Department of Antiquities and Museums in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem.

These nails were under the supervision, responsibility and custody of that curator for at least 15 years, until they were transferred in the beginning of the 1990s, at the behest of the then director of the IAA, to the Tel Aviv University Anthropology Department, where they have been until the present.

Furthermore, the fact that the nails that appear in the film are unregistered, without any mark of identification, as opposed to what is described in the preliminary archaeological report by the excavator of the site, reinforces the fact that the nails did not come from a proper archaeological excavation.

Therefore, the claim presented in the film that the provenance of the nails presently located in the Tel Aviv University physical anthropology laboratory and shown in the film was from the tomb of Caiaphas, discovered in the Jerusalem Peace Forest in 1990, is unsubstantiated and has no factual basis. The data shows exactly when and how the nails came to be in the Medical School lab approximately 15 or more years before the tomb of Caiaphas was excavated.

Source: Israel Antiquities Authority

How Tattoos ‘Move’ With Age, Ink Wanders Over The Years

The dyes which are injected into the skin to create tattoos move with time – permanently altering the look of a given design. In this April’s Mathematics Today Dr Ian Eames, a Reader in Fluid Mechanics at UCL, published a mathematical model enabling us to estimate the movement of these ink particles and predict how specific tattoo designs will look several years in the future.

Credit: University College London

“Tattoos are incredibly popular worldwide with more than a third of 18-25 year olds in the USA sporting at least one design,” says Dr Eames. “A great deal of work has already been done on the short term fate of ink particles in the skin, tracking them over periods of just a few months – but much less is known about how these particles move over longer periods of time.

“This paper provides a mathematical framework enabling us to predict how ink particles move over 20 year periods. It helps pave the way towards assessing whether there are any long-term health implications with tattoos – in addition to giving people an idea of how their chosen design could look several years down the line.”

Tattoo inks are a suspension of particles which are insoluble in water. Heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel, zinc and iron are used for colours and the tattoos are created by locally puncturing the dermis level of the skin, while simultaneously applying ink.

The damage to the skin leads to an initial immune response and white blood cells arrive to clear the debris. During this process, some of the ink particles are removed from the body via the lymphatic system, while the remainder are engulfed in fibroblast cells and sealed below the surface of the skin. The dispersal of the ink particles occurs over time as the cells which contain them either divide, or die and exit the body.

“Skin type, age, size, exposure to the sunlight and the type of ink which is used all influence how a tattoo disperses with time,” says Dr Eames. “But broadly speaking, what my paper shows is that the small details in a tattoo are lost first, with thicker lines being less affected. Although finely detailed tattoos might look good when they are first done, they tend to lose their definition after 15 years - depending on how fine the lines are.”

Source: University College London

'E-Waste Pollution' A Threat To Human Health, May Damage DNA, Cause Cancer And Other Diseases

The modern age may be killing us or you could call it the revenge of the computer.

In addition to its damaging effect on the environment and its illegal smuggling into developing countries, researchers have now linked e-waste to adverse effects on human health, such as inflammation and oxidative stress – precursors to cardiovascular disease, DNA damage and possibly cancer.

Defective and obsolete electronic equipment

Credit: Wikipedia

Electronic waste, e-waste, e-scrap, or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) describes loosely discarded, surplus, obsolete, or broken electrical or electronic devices. Informal processing of electronic waste in developing countries causes serious health and pollution problems. Some electronic scrap components, such as CRTs, contain contaminants such as lead, cadmium, beryllium, mercury, and brominated flame retardants.

Even in developed countries recycling and disposal of e-waste may involve significant risk to workers and communities and great care must be taken to avoid unsafe exposure in recycling operations and leaching of material such as heavy metals from landfills and incinerator ashes. Scrap industry and USA EPA officials agree that materials should be managed with caution, and environmental dangers of unused electronics have not been exaggerated.

In a study published today, Tuesday 31 May, in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters, researchers took air samples from one of the largest e-waste dismantling areas in China and examined their effects on human lung epithelial cells.

E-waste, or electronic waste, describes end-of-life electrical goods such as computers, televisions, printers, and mobile phones. Each year between 20 million tons of e-waste is generated worldwide, 100,000 tons of which is exported from UK shores, according to a recent BBC Panorama programme. A large proportion of worldwide e-waste is exported to China.

Electronic waste is often exported to developing countries

Credit: Wikipedia

Due to the crude recycling process, many pollutants, such as persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals, are released from e-waste, which can easily accumulate in the human body through the inhalation of contaminated air.

After exposing the cultured lung cells to the organic-soluble and water-soluble constituents of the samples, the researchers tested for the level of Interleukin-8 (IL-8), a key mediator of inflammatory response, and Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS), chemically reactive molecules that can cause extensive damage in excess.

The samples were also tested for the expression of the p53 gene – a tumour suppressor gene that produces a protein to help counteract cell damage. If there is evidence of this gene being expressed it can be seen as a marker that cell damage is taking place.

The results showed that the samples of pollutants caused significant increases in both IL-8 and ROS levels – indicators of an inflammatory response and oxidative stress respectively. Significant increases were also observed in the levels of the p53 protein with the risk of organic-soluble pollutants being much higher than water-soluble pollutants.

Co-author of the study Dr Fangxing Yang, of Zhejiang University, said, "Both inflammatory response and oxidative stress may lead to DNA damage, which could induce oncogenesis, or even cancer. Of course, inflammatory response and oxidative stress are also associated with other diseases, such as cardiovascular diseases."

In this study, the researchers took samples of the air from Taizhou of Zhejiang province – a dismantling complex that involves more than 60,000 people and dismantles more than two million tons of e-waste to recycle metals each year.

To obtain the samples, the researchers used two sampling sites that were located downwind of a dismantling industrial park in Taizhou, set up by the local government in 2004.

It is well known that inflammatory response and oxidative stress can lead to DNA damage and therefore activate the p53 gene to counteract this damage. The study did not find any significant correlation between IL-8 and ROS and p53 expression; however the researchers suggest that this may be due to the various other endpoints, not examined in this study, which can damage DNA.

A further study will attempt to characterise the components present in the polluted air and identify the key contributors to these adverse effects.

Dr Yang continued, "From these results it is clear that the 'open' dismantlement of e-waste must be forbidden with more primitive techniques improved. As the results show potential adverse effects on human health, workers at these sites must also be given proper protection.

"Furthermore, one must consider the initial manufacturing process of electrical goods and look to utilise more environmentally and human friendly materials in their production."

Contacts and sources:

Michael Bishop
Institute of Physics

Citation: Comparisons of IL-8, ROS and p53 responses in human lung epithelial cells exposed to two extracts of PM2.5 collected from an e-waste recycling area, China

The published version of the paper "Comparisons of IL-8, ROS and p53 responses in human lung epithelial cells exposed to two extracts of PM2.5 collected from an e-waste recycling area, China" (Environ. Res. Lett 6 024013) will be freely available online from Tuesday 31 May 2011.