Second Renaissance

So NASA discovered some way to read faded old documents. This is exciting for people who like to read soap operas by guys who died 300 years ago written in a dead language.

The original papyrus documents, discovered in an ancient rubbish dump in central Egypt, are often meaningless to the naked eye - decayed, worm-eaten and blackened by the passage of time. But scientists using the new photographic technique, developed from satellite imaging, are bringing the original writing back into view. Academics have hailed it as a development which could lead to a 20 per cent increase in the number of great Greek and Roman works in existence. Some are even predicting a "second Renaissance".

Now who believes this will happen? I could barely sit through 'Antigone' in high school, much less pronounce it. I sincerely doubt more people are going to 'rediscover' the classics than are currently 'rediscovering' the 1980's. After all, Joe Six-Pack feels pretty cultured these days if he can tell the difference between Depeche Mode and Duran Duran.