Every century, the twelve astrological zodiac gods make their way down to Earth and procreate with mortals to bear one single offspring. Each offspring has special abilities associated with the four major elements that are related to each god; fire, earth, air, and water. Aries, the god of war and famine, begins to plot his reign over mankind to express his hatred toward humans for being the outcast among the Astrals. He uses his offspring, Axel, as his puppet to carry out his evil deeds until he is able to manifest and create chaos on Earth. Reina, the daughter of Virgo, and Asher, the son of Leo, work together to try and stop Axel from being completely corrupted by Aries' chaos. With the help of the researchers at the Astral Research Center, the rest of the offspring from around the world are brought together for the first time in history. Despite being only teenagers, the offspring are faced with the challenge of defeating Aries in order to save mankind and restore order between mortals and Astrals.

Cleopatra's Nose is an exuberant gathering of essays and profiles representing twenty years of Judith Thurman's celebrated writing, particularly her fascination with human vanity, femininity, and "women's work"—from haute couture to literature to commanding empires. The subjects are iconic (Jackie, the Brontës, Toni Morrison, Anne Frank) and multifarious (tofu and performance art, pornography and platform shoes, kimonos and bulimia); all inspire dazzling displays of craft, wit, penetration, and intelligence. Here we find explorations of voracity: hunger for sex, food, experience, and transcendence; see how writers from Flaubert to Nadine Gordimer have engaged with history; meet eminent Victorians and the greats of fashion. Whether reporting on hairstyles, strolling the halls of power, or deftly unpacking novels and their writers, Thurman never fails to provoke, inspire, captivate, and enlighten. Cleopatra's Nose is an embarrassment of riches from one of our great literary journalists.

In spite of all the papers that others have written about the manuscript, there is no complete survey of all the approaches, ideas, background information and analytic studies that have accumulated over the nearly fifty-five years since the manuscript was discovered by Wilfrid M. Voynich in 1912. This report pulls together all the information the author could obtain from all the sources she has examined, and to present it in an orderly fashion. The resulting survey will provide a firm basis upon which other students may build their work, whether they seek to decipher the text or simply to learn more about the problem.

A new, transnational, and interdisciplinary understanding of cosmology in Asian history. Cosmologies were not coherent systems belonging to separate cultures but rather complex bodies of knowledge and practice that regularly coexisted and co-mingled in extraordinarily diverse ways.

Addressing a field that has been dominated by astronomers, physicists, engineers, and computer scientists, the contributors to this collection raise questions that may have been overlooked by physical scientists about the ease of establishing meaningful communication with an extraterrestrial intelligence. These scholars are grappling with some of the enormous challenges that will face humanity if an information-rich signal emanating from another world is detected. By drawing on issues at the core of contemporary archaeology and anthropology, we can be much better prepared for contact with an extraterrestrial civilization, should that day ever come.