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In case anyone was wondering you can pick up a copy of the Magna Carta for $21,321,000. Keeping It Real

Magna Carta itself is a nice reminder of how costly it once was to store and spread information. Its very purpose was to get the king’s word down in tangible form, safeguard it, enshrine it and then get it out to the countryside. In 13th-century England this required the soaking, stretching, scraping and drying of sheepskin to make vellum, the preparation of ink from oak galls and painstaking penmanship by professional quill-wielding scribes. Then copies had to be made the same way — there was no other — for dispatch to county seats and churches, where they were read aloud.

At that point the value of Magna Carta resided in its words: their meaning and their very real political force, beginning with King John’s greetings in 1215 to “his archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices, foresters, sheriffs, stewards, servants and to all his officials and loyal subjects” and continuing with a message never before heard — a setting of limits on the power of the state. It made a grant of rights and liberties to all free men, irrevocably and forever, at least in theory. The document didn’t just express that grant or represent it or certify it. The document was the grant — “given by our hand in the meadow that is called Runnymede.”

Gleick quotes auction house Sotheby as saying there are 17 “original exemplars” copies of the Magna Carta, most of which are stored in libraries and churches.

beaming pigment wallpaper 1600x 

Smiling? You Can Hear It in the Voice  

Smiling affects how we speak, to the point that listeners can actually identify the type of smile based on sound alone, according to a new study that also determined some people have “smilier” voices overall than others.

The research adds to the growing body of evidence that smiling and other expressions pack a strong informational punch and may even impact us on a subliminal level.

“When we listen to people speaking, we may be picking up on all sorts of cues, even unconsciously, which may help us interpret the speaker,” lead author Amy Drahota told Discovery News.

There was no mention of the measure of sincerity or the degree to which one can put a deceptive smile into a voice.