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Architecture is the art and science of scheming out and construct buildings and other physical structures by a person or a computer, primarily to provide shelter.  It is the art or science of building; exclusively: the art or practice of designing and building structures and especially livable ones.

For your architecture dissertation you are required to do methodical research work. Architecture is all about originality where as dissertation writing is all about research on a great topic.

Architecture dissertations have a lot to do with the topic. If you choose a good architect dissertation topic it would be much easier for you visualize how your dissertation is going to be. It is like visualizing a building before it stands up. A good topic gives your architecture dissertation a sound platform.

Some great architecture dissertation topics can be: 

1.      Earthquake design in architecture

2.      Building wonder bridges

3.      Organic architecture

4.      Non rectangular building science

5.      The wonder that is Sydney Opera house

6.      How architecture affects the environment

7.      Form more important then function?

8.     Eco-friendly type of architecture packed with state-of-the-art technology for energy conservation like photocells, quantum mechanics, fusion technology, etc.
Ultimate design of eco/modern living and why people won't buy such a house and why builders won't build and how easy/difficult it would be to get planning permission etc.?

I can’t take it no more I need a wife. And not the town type, I’m talking about those thoroughbreds from up country. I’ve not been eating healthy of late and the dishes are still dirty since I last used them (circa February 1st). The laundry keeps piling and my back ache won’t go away. I have three assignments due tomorrow and my sleep patterns have been disturbingly inconsistent. I know, I know, at a time when the women folk are breaking the yoke of male chauvinism I come out and make such comments. Don’t be quick to send me to The Hague, or China, or wherever they send my class of offenders because in my defense, men are not built for this physically or mentally. It stresses me out and breaks my bones. So I have to salute these magnificent creatures who have kept at it since creation. Hats off to you. We couldn’t have made it this far without you. You are this man’s best friend.

Lead roof tiles are worth a lot of money. And you'll find them, in the United Kingdom, at least, on the top of schools, museums, churches, and the Houses of Parliament. I may be wrong about the last one, but Tom Berge, a man who truly appreciates the free part of free enterprise, knew where he could pinpoint such buildings: Google Earth. He sat at his computer, googled away, selected his targets (mercifully, the roofs were unblurred), got into his car, and climbed less than socially toward his riches. He managed to collect about $140,000 worth of lead, which he sold to unsuspecting merchants. This sign was, apparently, recently hung in front of the Honeywood Museum, one of Mr. Berge's targets. The museum does not appear to legislate for shoes on the roof. A friend of Berge revealed to the Telegraph: "He could tell the lead roofs apart on Google Earth, as they were slightly darker than normal." Mr. Berge, aged a mere 27, pleaded guilty last week--no, not to an appreciation for official buildings, but rather to theft. He received a less than leaden eight-month suspended jail sentence and 100 hours of community service. I wonder if he'll be asked to repair a few church roofs.

i will admit that some of the insects do not lead
noble lives but is every man s hand to be against them
yours for less justice and more charity —archy

A plea for toleration like no other, it came from a fictional cockroach named archy. In the 1920s archy nightly broad-jumped across the typewriter of columnist Don Marquis at the New York Evening Sun, chronically missing shift key and punctuation marks, and always admonishing vengeful two-legged vertebrates to keep their place. Remember, archy pointed out, cockroaches have the more ancient lineage, for “insects were insects when man was only a burbling whatisit.”

For years that most celebrated cockroach of all entertained countless readers with oft poetic whimsy. But for most of us, archy's real-life counterpart is nothing to laugh about. Hard to like, cockroaches are even harder to ignore. Although we call them water bugs, Croton bugs, palmetto bugs, and half a dozen other “we-don't-really-have-cockroaches” names, these glossy black or tan pests stubbornly remain true to themselves—and to us.

One early actor in this love-hate drama came briefly to rest at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. There professor emeritus Dr. Frank M. Carpenter cradled a flat gray stone that escaped dynamite and power shovel in an Illinois strip mine. The stone bore the unmistakable impression of a cockroach 300 million years old.

“Cockroaches have survived dinosaurs, ice ages, and who knows what since they first appeared early in Upper Carboniferous times,” Dr. Carpenter told me. “Astonishingly, there's almost no difference in form between ancient cockroaches and those in our homes. They're the only insects to have lasted so long with so little change.”

Fingering the fossil imprint, Dr. Carpenter added, “Millions of years from now there will be creatures as roachlike as anything today. Other than destroying the planet, probably nothing we can do will have much effect on the cockroach.”

Pests Travel Worldwide

An extraordinary counsel of despair? Not really; more the expression of resigned admiration. Dr. Carpenter traces cockroaches back more than 320 million years, easily among the oldest insects alive. Resilient, adaptable, they survive by being generalists—willing to scavenge almost anything, able to live and breed almost anywhere.

Cockroaches sample food before it enters their mouths and learn to shun foul-tasting poisons. Opportunists, they will dine on wallpaper or television cords, and will turn cannibal if desperate. In a pinch the American cockroach can get by for as long as three months on water alone, one month on nothing at all.

Most of the 3,500 known species flee from danger, but one rolls up into a ball when threatened, and the Florida roach sprays attackers with an irritating fluid.

Some cockroaches snorkel and prowl stream bottoms, others burrow beneath deserts, and one tiny species inhabits fungus gardens kept by tropical leaf-cutting ants. To get around, it hitchhikes on queen ants during their mating flights.

Virgin female Suriname cockroaches clone themselves, producing generation after generation of genetically identical females. Prolific to a fault, a pair of German cockroaches and their offspring could, in one year, multiply to 400,000 insects.

Mercifully, only a dozen or so cockroach species are domestic pests in the U. S., and only five are truly common. From ancestral homes in Africa and Central Asia they have fanned out over the globe in camel caravans and slave ships, airplanes and submarines. Because of these trailblazers, cockroaches abound everywhere but in polar regions:

German cockroach (Blattella germanica). The species that householders most often carry home in grocery bags, small, fleet Germans need only a leaky faucet and a bowl of dog food to become an enduring kitchen embarrassment. They can squeeze into cracks a sixteenth of an inch wide and are the most cosmopolitan of all roaches.

American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). The “Bombay canary” to generations of mariners, this large cockroach, one and a half inches long, has jumped ship at ports on five continents and moved inland. In 1925 Welsh coal miners discovered American cockroaches living nearly half a mile underground. More commonly, they infest restaurants, supermarkets, and bakeries.

Smoky brown cockroach (Periplaneta fuliginosa). Smaller and darker than the closely related Americans, smoky browns skitter through city dump and kitchen alike in Asia, South America, and the United States. In Houston they buzz streetlights; in Boston they girdle plants in greenhouses.

Oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis). This hardy Russian native prefers cool basements and can winter outdoors. Despite the name, it is a greater pest in Europe than in the Orient.

Madeira cockroach (Leucophaea maderae). A newcomer to the United States by way of South America and the West Indies, the Madeira cockroach emits a noxious odor if disturbed. In recent decades this roach, one of our largest, has invaded New York City, possibly stowing away in the luggage of Puerto Rican immigrants.

At the University of Wyoming, entomologist Dr. Fred A. Lawson and I scrutinized one of these unshakable fellow travelers with a scanning electron microscope, an experience that would abash even the most self-confident exterminator.

“Cockroaches are primitive, but undeniably well engineered for what they do and where they live,” said Dr. Lawson as he focused the scope. The highly magnified mandibles, or jaws, of an American roach came into view; deeply scalloped cutting blades, they overlapped like scissors. At their base they broadened into blunt nubs that grind together like a vise to crush food.

Scarcely picky eaters, cockroaches are nonetheless prepared to be finicky, explained Dr. Lawson. “A battery of sensory hairs must first accept anything a roach considers eating. That includes poison.”

Beside and beneath the cockroach's mouth hang four fleshy feelers—palpi—studded with bristles. Many resemble delicately fluted spikes and pivot in ringlike sockets, depress at the least touch, and snap back. Other bristles, peg-shaped and porous, admit odor molecules on the basis of their size and shape, as a key fits a lock.

Such pressure, taste, and odor receptors give cockroaches most of the cues they need to survive. Even with eyes painted over, they function well, if their antennae—bearing thousands of moisture receptors, tactile bristles, and tasting and olfactory hairs—remain intact. Vibration sensors in its knee joints enable a cockroach to detect another's footfall, and humans trying to put a foot down on the cockroach problem create drafts that deflect the cerci—large segmented prongs jutting from the insect's abdomen. These flash nerve impulses directly to the legs, triggering a startle response that can get an American cockroach up and going in 54 thousandths of a second, faster than humans can blink.

Or swing a rolled-up newspaper. In a Texas hotel a German roach eluded my blows until a wild backhand decapitated the intruder. But the cockroach's fail-safe nervous circuitry converted my satisfying swat into a lesson in humility: That night the headless insect crawled from a wastebasket and into my open suitcase to deposit an egg case; by morning I was adoptive father of a dozen wraithlike cockroach nymphs.

Stalking Jungle Roaches

Many cockroach species have wings, and the fugitive impulse can inspire them to weak flight. The best, most colorful fliers glide by night in the tropics. They drew me, with Dr. Donald Cochran and Dr. Don Mullins, entomologists from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, to Las Cruces, a biological research station in the sultry jungle of Costa Rica's southern border. There the sun was white, the air still, and American cockroaches had sensibly moved into the station's ailing refrigerator.

At dusk the jungle surrounding Las Cruces grew cool and expectant, and one evening we slipped into the exuberant tangle of trunks, leaves, and vines to trap cockroaches. The moon was full, but beneath the dense jungle canopy it shed no light. It would have been less intrusive than our glaring flashlights, less disorienting to the luminescent firefly beetles that flickered eerie green all around us.

More nightmarish creatures—whip scorpions, crickets with four-inch-long antennae, walkingsticks as large as dinner forks—eyed us from palms and tree ferns. A black light draped with a sheet drew scores of moths and beetles, but no cockroaches. Reluctantly, in fear of vipers, we began poking a heap of fallen palm fronds.

Commotion exploded. Dozens of cockroaches churned from the rotting leaves and swept over our feet. “That's a strike!” cheered Donald, swiping at his boots. He plucked furiously, whooped, and clapped the squirming catch into collection jars.

Don Mullins and I waded into the seething insects, lunging, snatching—swearing when some tried to sprint up our pant legs. One frenzied cockroach jetted an oily spray and wriggled through my fingers reeking of overripe bananas. Back at the station later that night, Don rattled a jar, and two beetles, a praying mantis, and a reddish brown cockroach tumbled out—all dead. Frantic to escape, the cockroach had fumigated itself and its companions.

Other nights we did better, bagging a shimmering green banana roach and horsefly mimics: blue-bodied cockroaches with white stripes and bulbous red eyes. By expedition's end we had captured 62 species of tropical cockroaches, a respectable haul, but no threat to the world supply.

Duelers Also Hiss

“A lot of entomologists keep Madagascar roaches as pets,” Dr. Margaret C. Nelson said as I stepped into her laboratory at the Harvard Medical School in Boston a few weeks later. Beats having them as enemies, I thought, as the neurobiologist handed over Atlas, a solidly built three-incher with horns. He seized my finger, waggled his abdomen, and hissed like an angry radiator.

Madagascars are named after their only home, the island off southeastern Africa. By harnessing these giant cockroaches to an oscilloscope, Dr. Nelson and graduate student Jean Fraser of Brandeis University have charted wheezes, rasps, and a come-hither hiss trilled by receptive females. To produce these outbursts, Madagascars pump their abdomens and expel air through a pair of modified breathing vents on their flanks. A good double-barreled blast can be heard 12 feet away, and hissing punctuates the duels that male Madagascars fight for territory.

“They may battle for half an hour, hissing 20 or 30 times,” said Dr. Nelson as we watched two hefty Madagascars sound off and charge each other, butting heads like rams. Backing off, one insect suddenly lunged, thrusting stubby horns. His opponent sidestepped; not built for speed, he waddled—a cockroach sumo wrestler.

Stolid Madagascar roaches are more tolerable than most—unable to flit up a sleeve—and less likely to carry the universal baggage of common cockroaches: bacteria, viruses, and worms. Because the pest species are nocturnal, people seldom see them or fully realize how serious a potential health menace cockroaches are. They have been implicated as the cause of allergies and, like flies, spread disease organisms by walking or feeding on filth and depositing it at the next stop. Though not incubators of infection as are mosquitoes, they harbor bacteria causing typhoid, leprosy, plague, food poisoning, and a legion of other ills. Polio viruses shelter in cockroaches as do the eggs of parasitic worms.

Remarkably, cockroaches have never been conclusively linked to epidemics of human disease. And unsavory microbial companions aside, the insects are fussy.

They groom themselves as diligently as cats, brushing cerci with spiny hind legs, combing antennae, and rubbing against solid objects as horses rub against fence posts to scrape dust and dirt off their backs. Their fastidiousness preserves the epicuticle, a vulnerable coating of wax and oils that prevents a cockroach from drying out. Such a varnish is vital to species like the American roach, 75 percent water by weight. Abrade too much of this waterproofing, and within hours the insect withers away.

Some householders exploit this Achilles' heel by scattering diatomaceous earth—the chalky, sharp-edged shells of one-celled water plants—where roaches are most likely to pick up the abrasive dust. Powdered boric acid, the stuff of eyewash, has the same effect, and is poisonous to roaches as well. While not as potent as synthetic insecticides, these cheap dusts are longer lasting and less repellent to the cockroach, an insect that learns to shun some chemical poisons before picking up a lethal dose.

Termites are more destructive, rats more dangerous, but cockroaches are an exterminator's bread and butter, worth half a billion dollars yearly in repeat business. Egalitarians, the pests afflict rich and poor alike, and do-it-yourselfers annually strike back with another 150 million dollars' worth of dusts, sprays, and baited traps.

Caught in a chemical barrage, roaches have become resistant to many once deadly poisons. Thomas Tuttle daily attacks this spontaneous genetic engineering at Racine, Wisconsin, in one of the world's largest commercial entomology laboratories.

“We screened nearly 3,000 compounds last year,” Tom said, guiding me through the facility he manages for S. C. Johnson & Son, Inc., makers of Raid. Tom introduced his guinea pigs—400,000 German and American roaches luxuriating in jars provisioned with vitamin-enriched lab chow.

“We do everything but brush their teeth,” he said. “Pedigree records ensure that we try different chemicals on insects of like age, a factor we can't control in field tests.”

Tom favors multiple-housing complexes for the tests, where big blocks of identical units make it easy for cockroaches to seek out the good life. Though individual apartments are often spotless, Tom puts little stock in the protest “They're my neighbor's, not mine.”

“People think that just because they won't eat dog food, roaches won't either,” Tom said. “They forget that good sanitation is still the best cockroach control.”

Where sanitation is poor, cockroaches may quickly get out of hand. The closed environment of ships especially intensifies infestations, and the insects are practically a naval tradition, like dress swords. Capturing a Spanish vessel in the late 16th century, English sea dog Sir Francis Drake took crew and countless cockroaches prisoner. In 1789 Captain Bligh of the H.M.S. Bounty ordered the hold of that unhappy ship swabbed with boiling water. Roaches were chewing up his cargo of breadfruit plants.

For modern sailors, too, ridding ships of six-legged bunkmates can be as frustrating as Captain Ahab's quest for the great White Whale. In 1978 the U. S. Navy alone sprayed its fleets with almost 10,000 gallons of pesticides. Seeking to cut chemical use and improve pest control, Navy entomologists more recently released 300 sterile male German roaches aboard a ship of the Atlantic Fleet. Chromosome mutations in such genetically altered males can prevent full development of most of the embryos in the female's pod-shaped egg case, and even the remaining mature embryos eventually die: Cockroach nymphs hatch only through a team effort, by inflating themselves with air and splitting open the egg case. Such genetic birth control works in the lab, but after a three-month shipboard test the Navy conceded the cockroach another victory at sea.

At the University of California in Riverside, I saw Dr. Michael Rust demonstrate electronic gadgets that impress neither roaches nor the Environmental Protection Agency, which regulates use of pesticides.

“EPA wants to ban these devices and asked us to test them,” the entomologist said as he plugged in a blue metal box intended to drive away cockroaches by upsetting local magnetic fields. A blinking red light and a sonorous hum showed it was “working.”

“We set it beside six large jars holding 20 cockroaches apiece,” Mike recollected, “and let it run night and day. In half a year we had 5,000 insects.”

Cockroaches may ignore electronics, but they find each other's pheromones—aromatic chemical lures—irresistible. Cockroach researcher Dr. Louis M. Roth stumbled on their weakness in 1952, discovering the sex pheromone of the female American roach. In 1966, working with another species, he isolated and named the male's sex excitant—”seducin.”

The female version was especially potent, recalls Dr. Roth, now retired: “The scent from females 40 feet upwind drove males wild. They even tried to mate with water vials taken from cages of virgin females.” He sacrificed 100,000 females to produce a few billionths of a gram of the compound.

In 1979 scientists at Columbia University synthesized the powerful attractant of the American roach; in 1975 chemists in Japan and at the University of Kansas manufactured the sex appeal of a female German cockroach. Hope glimmers that a smoke screen of artificial pheromone might divert males from seductive partners. But alas, German cockroaches must touch to exchange sex scents, and some lures only excite—not attract—males.

Cockroaches Won't Give Up

“Our struggle against cockroaches is not hopeless,” consoles Tom Tuttle of S. C. Johnson. “We're holding our own, but not much more; they just seem to love to live with us. Everything has a purpose, but I really don't know what cockroaches have to offer—except a pain in the neck.”

Meanwhile the man-versus-cockroach conflict continues, and we humans might well wonder if there wasn't a note of smugness in archy's remark:

there is always some
little thing that is too
big for us

The arrival of the year 2000 has provided much of humanity with cause for reflection on the last millennium. Scientific, social, and political revolutions during the last 1,000 years have left an indelible mark on the world that exists today. Perhaps one of the best ways to examine the sprawling history of the second millennium is to consider the most influential people who shaped it. As American poet and essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There is properly no history; only biography.” But how does one go about selecting from 1,000 years of history a representative group of the most influential people? Which individuals most fully represented the triumphs of humanity and shaped the outcome of the millennium? Five criteria were used to make the selections. The first one—whose contributions had a lasting influence on history?—carried the most weight. The second criterion was the effect on the sum total of wisdom and beauty in the world. This allowed the consideration of artistic contributions, such as a Beethoven sonata, a Michelangelo fresco, or a Shakespearean sonnet, that may not have directly altered the history books but without which world culture would not be as rich as it is. The next criterion was influence on contemporaries. How much did each individual affect the world during his or her own time? This standard allowed consideration of more modern figures, whose lasting contribution to the world is more difficult to gauge at this juncture in history. Another point of evaluation was singularity of contribution. If a single person had invented the automobile or the Internet, that genius might have been considered for our roster. But so many of the innovations and inventions that made their mark on history were the result of collaborative efforts. The criterion of singularity of contribution recognized those people whose singular brilliance charted entirely new territory. The fifth and final criterion was charisma. This attribute brought to the selection process great leaders who may not have been intellectual giants noted for pathbreaking new discoveries, but who nevertheless exerted great influence by virtue of their ability to inspire other people to act. Using these five criteria, the people whose contributions most changed the world in ten different categories were selected. The ten are Johannes Gutenberg, inventor; Christopher Columbus, explorer; Michelangelo, artist; Martin Luther, religious leader; William Shakespeare, writer; Galileo Galilei, scientist; George Washington, statesman; Ludwig van Beethoven, music composer; Elizabeth Cady Stanton, activist; and Mohandas Gandhi, peacemaker. Inventor History records little about the life of German printer Johannes Gutenberg. Yet his remarkable achievement, the invention of modern printing, is often singled out as the feat that most changed the millennium. Gutenberg's innovation brought the printed word to a wide audience for the first time, altering history with its far-reaching impact on literacy and education. People had been trying to devise printing methods for centuries before Gutenberg's 15th-century breakthrough. The Chinese and Koreans had much earlier pioneered block printing, in which different characters or images are carved on blocks of wood. This slow, laborious process was not adequate for rapid reproduction of text, however, and most books were still produced by even more laborious hand copying. Gutenberg, who is described in historical accounts as a goldsmith, began experimenting with printing methods in the 1430s. His major breakthrough—the unique development that earns him such high millennial stature—was a system of movable type. It involved a mold that had the outlines of letters or other characters stamped in it. Letters of type could be produced rapidly by pouring liquid metal into the pre-made molds. These letters were then assembled to make up pages for printing. Gutenberg is also credited with refinements in the hand-operated printing press and even in types of ink. The end result of these innovations was the Gutenberg Bible, completed sometime between 1450 and 1456, a work renowned for its beauty and elegance. This triumph did not save Gutenberg's business, however, as a lawsuit forced him to surrender the rights to his revolutionary technology. Ironically, his name does not appear on any of the works attributed to him. With the printing press, reading and writing were no longer confined to religious orders and the rich. This altered the existing power structures: Radical ideas were more easily disseminated and people learned to question the authority of the ruling classes. Hoping to head off this movement, about 30 years after the printing press was perfected Pope Innocent VII established the doctrine of prior restraint, which required printers to submit unpublished manuscripts to the Catholic Church for review. Prior restraint, however, failed to stop the printing and widespread distribution of German theologian Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses in 1517. The printing press thus largely made possible the Protestant Reformation, one of the most significant events of the millennium. Within 100 years of Gutenberg's breakthrough the Americas were discovered, the authority and dominance of the Catholic Church were fractured, and scientists began asking questions that challenged long-held dogmas about creation and the nature of the universe. It is arguable that none of this would have happened without Gutenberg's printing press and the easy exchange of ideas it made possible. (For more on the printing press and other world-changing inventions, see the September 1999 Feature “Landmark Inventions of the Millennium.”) Explorer Today it is generally recognized that Italian-Spanish navigator Christopher Columbus did not “discover” the Americas, which were already inhabited by native peoples. However, he did instigate the European exploration of these lands at the end of the 15th century. This single act of courage and skill, thought foolish or suicidal by many at the time, set in motion global population shifts and advances in human knowledge that profoundly changed history. Europeans found a new land to inhabit and exploit; however, Columbus's discovery also began a clash of cultures that proved disastrous for the aboriginal peoples of the Americas. Although it is a myth that during Columbus's time people believed the Earth was flat, there was great disagreement over the size of the Earth and the position of the lands and oceans. There is evidence that people from Iceland landed in what is now northeastern Canada around AD 1000 , but experts believe this fact was unknown in medieval Europe. Consequently, Europeans had no knowledge that the North American continent even existed. Based on his studies of contemporary maps and accounts, as well as on his sea travels to various European ports, Columbus came to believe that he could reach East Asia—what he called “the Indies”—by sailing west from Europe. Finding royal backing for such a plan was not easy, however, and it was almost ten years before King Ferdinand of Aragón and Queen Isabella of Castile agreed to support his voyage in 1492. Columbus was foremost a navigational genius, completing four successful trips from Spain to the islands now known as the West Indies. On the other hand, as many scholars have since pointed out, his motives were primarily financial and personal—he was seeking new lands for Spain and riches and glory for himself. Another aim was to convert the native peoples he encountered to Christianity. He even forced several natives to return to Spain with him to testify to Ferdinand and Isabella of the riches of this new land. However, scholars note that in these actions and views Columbus was no better or worse than other Europeans of his time. Columbus died in 1506, just a few years after his last voyage. He never set foot on the North American mainland. The many explorers who followed him opened up the continent for European colonization, reshaping humanity's view of the world. Columbus's achievements were key in the transition from the Middle Ages to the modern age. More than 500 years later, Columbus's name still looms large over the millennium. Artist The epitaph on the tomb of the greatest artist in history summarizes his life simply: “Il Divino Michelangelo.” Indeed, Michelangelo Buonarroti was held to be divine by his contemporaries—it was the only way to explain his tremendous genius. While his countryman and peer Leonardo da Vinci edges Michelangelo as the quintessential Renaissance man, when it comes to sheer artistry there is no real competition. Even though Leonardo's Mona Lisa arguably ranks as the millennium's most recognizable painting, Michelangelo's total body of work—his sculptures, paintings, and frescoes—is unequaled. Michelangelo's popular fame may rest on the sculpture masterpiece David (1501-1504, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, Italy) and the Sistine Chapel ceiling (1508-1512, Vatican City), but the Italian artist had a long and varied career. He was born in 1475 in the village of Caprese and grew up in Florence, which was the art capital of the early Renaissance. His early success came as a sculptor, but he also excelled at painting, architecture, and even poetry. The famous dome on the top of Saint Peter's Basilica in Vatican City is a Michelangelo design. Michelangelo seemed to thrive on challenge and difficulty in his work. David, perhaps the most famous sculpture in the world, was completed using a block of discarded marble. The artist spent four years flat on his back high on a scaffold in the Sistine Chapel to complete the masterpiece painting on the ceiling. Although ceiling paintings were usually considered unimportant and were reserved for figures because of their distance from the viewer, Michelangelo produced biblical scenes of power and subtlety on the chapel ceiling. He also painted the controversial fresco Last Judgment (1536-1541) on the chapel wall above the altar. Michelangelo's best work offers a combination of detail and exquisite beauty that is unmatched, according to art historians. His attention to the technical aspects of human anatomy, especially the male nude, is brilliant and influential. The artist's work is also intellectually stimulating, grounded in mythology, religion, and other references. Widely considered the greatest artist of his own time, Michelangelo is still seen as a key to the flowering of the Renaissance and is the standard against which all subsequent artists are measured. Religious Leader It can be persuasively argued that no government or institution wielded as much power during the last millennium as the Roman Catholic Church and its leadership, the papacy. Despite the Great Schism of 1054 that split the Christian church into Western and Eastern branches, the Roman church retained an incredible amount of power and prestige. In the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century, however, the church suffered a huge blow to its authority. One man was at the heart of that split: German theologian Martin Luther. Luther, who was born in 1483 in the town of Eisleben, succeeded perhaps because he attacked the corruption of the medieval Catholic Church from the inside. An ordained priest, Luther began questioning some of Catholicism's main tenets after becoming a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg in 1508. Although many others had decried the corruption of the papacy and the church before, Luther focused his disputes directly on certain church doctrines. Chief among these was his belief that only God, not the Catholic Church, could grant redemption from sin. This directly conflicted with the church's policy of selling indulgences. The indulgence was a monetary payment that promised the soul's release from punishment after death for sins committed during a person's lifetime. It was a popular and successful way for the church to raise money. In 1517 Luther publicly attacked this and other church practices that had become corrupted in his Disputation on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences, commonly known as the Ninety-Five Theses. (In Encarta Deluxe see the Sidebar “Luther's Ninety-Five Theses.”) Thanks to the new printing technology of the time, Luther's writings were widely distributed, discussed, and debated. Historians consider his revolutionary ideas the single most important contribution to the Reformation, a movement that ultimately shattered Catholicism's 1,200-year dominance in Europe and gave rise to Protestantism. Luther's defiance touched off more than a century of religious warfare and nurtured an emerging spirit of nationalism throughout the continent as governments rejected the authority of Rome and established their own national churches. In 1534, for example, England's King Henry VIII passed a law that created an independent Church of England, with himself as its head. Luther was excommunicated in 1521, but he continued to agitate against the Roman Catholic Church for the rest of his life. He was also the principal figure behind translating the Bible from the ancient Hebrew and Greek into German; this translation was important in opening religious scholarship to those without training in the ancient languages. Luther died in 1546, but his influence lives on in the religious world. Protestantism stands beside Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy as one of the three main divisions of Christianity. Lutheranism, the religious denomination named after Luther, is just one of many Protestant denominations that exist today, denominations that by one estimate claim 316 million adherents. Writer The sheer volume of writing produced in the last 1,000 years is staggering. Especially with Gutenberg's invention, a world of words was created that has continued to grow exponentially. Accordingly, there is a galaxy of brilliant writers from which to select one writer as the most influential in the second millennium. In reality, however, there is only one person who has the literary resume to even apply for the job: William Shakespeare. Nearly 400 years after his death, the English playwright and poet remains the most influential writer who ever lived. Shakespeare's central canon of 38 plays and a series of 154 sonnets is the standard against which all other writers are measured. His language, characters, plots, and wit are all consistently brilliant. Tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet (1595?), Hamlet (1601?), and King Lear (1605?) have survived the centuries with their beauty and power intact and remain some of the most popular and oft-produced plays. His comedies, including A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595?) and Twelfth Night (1600?), still charm and entertain. As many critics have observed, the tragic flaws and comic conceits depicted in Shakespeare's plays are just as relevant at the end of the 20th century as they were when the plays were written in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The man who is sometimes known simply as the Bard also heavily influenced the English language, which has emerged as the dominant tongue of the Western world. He created and popularized many words that survive in the English language today, and his famed lines are arguably the best known in all of literature: “Get thee to a nunnery,” “The lady doth protest too much,” and “Et tu, Brute?” are just a few of the many Shakespearean lines still commonly quoted. Other languages have their beloved writers, but all languages and lands pay homage to Shakespeare. Scientist There were countless major scientific breakthroughs during the last millennium. To choose one scientist who stands out over the rest requires weighing not just the individual's accomplishments, but also how he or she changed the process of scientific discovery itself. This criterion leads us to Italian physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei, who pioneered important aspects of what today is known as the scientific method. Galileo was born near Pisa in 1564—the same year Shakespeare was born and Michelangelo died. In 1589, while a professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa, Galileo began to conduct experiments testing Aristotle's theory that the speed of a fall is dependent on the weight of the falling object. Others had questioned the theory in the past, but Galileo was the first to use scientific experiments to disprove it—by dropping objects of different weights from the Tower of Pisa, legend has it. This method of developing a hypothesis and then performing an experiment to see if the hypothesis was true or false established physics as a precise science, bringing science as a whole out of the realm of natural philosophy and into the modern era. Galileo's contributions to scientific knowledge were also significant. He built the first telescope for astronomical purposes, observed that the Milky Way consisted of stars, articulated the laws of bodies in motion, and discovered the Moon's craters, Jupiter's largest four satellites, sun spots, and the phases of Venus. Galileo's ideas generated much controversy at the time, none more than his support for the then-heretical notion that the Earth was not the center of the universe. In his book Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems (1632), Galileo argued for the Copernican theory, which held that the Sun was the center of the solar system. After the book was published, Galileo was charged with and found guilty of heresy by the Roman Catholic Church. He died in 1642, but the fires of scientific revolution that he started still burn bright. Statesman George Washington was not a social philosopher who helped develop the concept of democracy, but he definitely fostered it and ensured its success as a political system. With the war for independence from Great Britain won, the founders of the United States lacked a clear vision of what their new government should look like. Already a war hero, Washington was instrumental in shaping a model of government that has worked successfully for more than 200 years—an oft-imitated system that has withstood destructive forces such as a wrenching civil war and corruption at the highest levels. Some of the crafters of the Constitution of the United States preferred a monarchy such as England had, but Washington rejected the idea and led the way in forging the democratic system that has endured to the present day. Before he was a statesman, Washington was a soldier of the highest caliber. After distinguishing himself fighting for the British army during the French and Indian War (1754-1763), Washington was elected commander in chief of the colonies' Continental Army in 1775. He faced a daunting task, taking on Great Britain's large standing army and a navy second to none in the world. His army was small, poorly trained, and lacking in supplies and weaponry. Washington and his troops fought bravely for eight long years, overcoming a more powerful enemy to win independence from Britain and establish a new nation based on the principle of liberty. After the war, Washington longed to return to his Virginia farm. Instead, realizing the fledgling government was still in danger of failing, he helped craft and ensure passage of the Constitution of the United States. He then accepted the unanimous will of the electoral college to serve as the nation's first president. “I walk on untrodden ground,” Washington said, realizing that everything he did in office would establish a precedent. Thus Washington invented the model for the presidency that has been preserved to this day: limiting himself to two terms, respecting the separate powers of the legislative and judicial branches of government, and fostering the concept of a strong central government. In 1799, just two years after he finished his presidency, Washington died on his Mount Vernon farm. The nation mourned a man who was at the same time one of the greatest military figures in history and one of the most important political figures of the millennium. More than any single monarch, more than any groundbreaking politician, Washington was the driving force behind what is arguably the most successful form of government of the second millennium. Music Composer Choosing one musician as most influential of the millennium is one of the more difficult assignments. Popular music styles change quickly, and musical taste is personal and hard to define. Because of this, the most logical choice is the individual whose work has stood the test of time, enrapturing each new generation as it discovers him: German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. Born in Bonn in 1770, Beethoven is often linked with Austrian composers Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as a chief figure of the Viennese classical style. Beethoven briefly studied with Mozart while in his teens, and the two might have become contemporary rivals if Mozart had not died in 1791 at the age of 35. Beethoven moved permanently to Vienna, Austria, in 1792 to study with Haydn, and he remained there the rest of his life. The student soon surpassed the teacher. Beethoven was one of the most skilled and innovative keyboardists of his time, but it was his compositional skill that was truly incomparable. His composing brilliance extended to every genre of classical music, from concertos to symphonies, from sonatas to operas and string quartets. Beethoven's career output is usually broken down by musicologists into three periods, and each period is marked by changes in style and technique—a refusal to rely on familiar forms and a continual search for new challenges, some of the hallmarks of an influential artist. Beethoven's life and career were colored by an unusual tragedy that gave him no choice but to change and adjust: He gradually lost his hearing in the early 1800s and remained deaf for the rest of his life. Although he could no longer perform in public and for a time even contemplated suicide, Beethoven could still compose. Some of his greatest works, such as his Third Symphony in E-flat Major (the Eroica, completed 1804) and the opera Fidelio (1805), were written during and after the time of his hearing loss. In fact, some scholars believe that the composer's greatness came not in spite of his deafness but because of it, as it freed him to experiment with new forms. Experts say that much of the work Beethoven composed during his third and last period was far ahead of its time. Beethoven's body of work endures. The opening strains of his Fifth Symphony (1808) are instantly recognizable today, and the “Ode to Joy” choral finale of his Ninth Symphony (1824) is one of the most famous pieces of music ever written. Some musicologists credit Beethoven with actually changing the way instrumental music, and music in general, is viewed in the pantheon of art. In the late 18th century, instrumental music was considered inferior to vocal music, and music itself was deemed inferior to painting or literature. After Beethoven, the opposite came to be accepted as true. Activist Until the 19th century, women were disenfranchised and largely powerless before the law. For example, a married woman could not hold property in her own name, and in divorce proceedings men were commonly awarded permanent legal custody of any children. And, of course, women were not allowed to vote. Then, in the mid-19th century, the unthinkable happened: Brave women began speaking up about the inequity in their lives. Slowly, 50 percent of the world's population won largely equal standing under the law. One of the most vocal and important of these women was Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton, along with fellow activist Lucretia Mott, was the driving force behind the first women's rights convention in the United States, held in 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York. A Declaration of Sentiments, based on the famous language of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, was signed at the end of the meeting. The statement called for property and custody rights for women, criticized men for barring women from higher education and most professions, and proposed that women should have the right to vote—an incredibly radical idea at that time. Stanton and her group, the National Woman Suffrage Association, began winning some battles as states changed their property laws so that women could own property. A constitutional amendment guaranteeing U.S. women the right to vote was first introduced in 1878. Stanton and her cohorts also helped women in other countries in their struggles to win rights such as the vote. However, Stanton did not believe that winning the vote alone would change the plight of women, and certainly not overnight. She was also outspoken on issues such as reproductive rights, contraception, and religion, and her views alienated many of the more conservative members of the women's movement. In essence, Stanton advocated nothing less than a complete restructuring of society. History has largely justified Stanton's beliefs. Although the battle for equal rights continues today in many places around the world, in 1920, 18 years after her death, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was finally passed, giving U.S. women the vote. When the second wave of feminism began in the 1960s, the new leaders of the movement drew on Stanton's life for inspiration. Today's feminists and scholars have a deep appreciation for the pivotal role that Stanton played in the battle for women's rights. Fellow 19th-century activist Susan B. Anthony might have more name recognition, as well as her own dollar coin, but even she acknowledged Stanton as the true founder of the women's rights movement. Peacemaker The last millennium saw the invention of some of the most destructive weapons and the waging of some of the most horrific wars imaginable. But there were also individuals who championed peace by using philosophies of nonviolence. Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi was such an individual. During the first half of the 20th century, Gandhi used civil disobedience and passive resistance to oust British colonial rule from his native India and to improve the lot of his country's poorest people. Gandhi's nonviolent revolution and philosophy of Satyagraha, which means “truth and firmness” in Sanskrit, inspired many others, including American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Born to a modest family in India in 1869, Gandhi studied law in London, England, and then moved to South Africa. There he was radicalized when he discovered he was considered a member of an inferior race. For 20 years, Gandhi protested against discriminatory treatment, and he was jailed on many occasions. It was in South Africa that Gandhi formulated his policy of passive resistance to authorities, based in part on the writings of Russian author Leo Tolstoy and American author Henry David Thoreau, as well as on the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1914, after the South African government had met many of his demands, Gandhi returned home to India, where the British had been a colonial power since the 18th century. Armed uprisings in the past had failed, but Gandhi advocated different tactics for combating British rule. He encouraged noncooperation with authorities and urged Indian bureaucrats to resign from their posts. His method of nonviolent protest, called ahimsa (noninjury), eventually attracted millions of followers. In a 1922 speech, Gandhi stated his philosophy: “I am endeavoring to show to my countrymen that violent noncooperation only multiplies evil and that as evil can only be sustained by violence, withdrawal of support of evil requires complete abstention from violence.” Gandhi became the leader of the independence movement and the most powerful individual in all of India, but he lived the simple lifestyle of the country's most impoverished. British officials could do little to thwart him. When imprisoned he fasted, and the authorities were forced to release him, knowing that the country would explode if Gandhi were to die in prison. In the end, all the political clout and military might of the British government were overcome by a peaceful man in a loincloth. India won its independence in 1947. The following year, while still working for peace in a country torn by religious factionalism, Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu nationalist. Gandhi showed the international community that guns and power were not the only—or even the most effective—way to topple an empire. A deeply spiritual man, his message went beyond politics and into the universal realms of human nature. Gandhi's life and teachings were of major importance in three of the biggest social struggles of the millennium: the battles against colonialism, racism, and violence. In recognition of his greatness, the Indian people gave Gandhi the Sanskrit title Mahatma, which means “great soul.” Influential Risk Takers These ten people who helped shape the second millennium were in one way or another radicals, risk takers, or controversial figures. All possessed the courage of their convictions and believed, often against considerable opposition, that they were in the right. Whether influential as religious reformer, free-thinking scientist, defender of democracy, women's activist, or in another role, these ten people changed the millennium and made history because they refused to accept the limits and conventional thinking of their eras. The world today is so much the richer for it. About the author: Agnes Hooper Gottlieb is an associate professor of communication and women's studies at Seton Hall University. She is a coauthor of 1000 Years, 1000 People: Ranking the Men and Women Who Shaped the Millennium.

Perhaps you, too, have friends who go nowhere without their hand sanitizer. Perhaps you, too, laugh at them beneath your clenched top lip.

However, researchers at Ondokiz Mayis University in Turkey are discovering that germs lurk everywhere. Especially in cell phones belonging to doctors and nurses, according to an Agence France Presse report. In fact, these phones may be a significant source of infections such as MRSA, which seems to have become an increasing danger in hospitals all over the world.

In researching the cell phones and dominant hands of 200 doctors and nurses, the researchers found that 95 percent of the phones were home to at least one bacterium. Nearly 35 percent hosted two. And 11 percent enjoyed three or more bugs of various descriptions.

What is perhaps most stunning is that 1 in 8 were found to harbor the potentially deadly MRSA bug, which is said to be the cause of 60 percent of all hospital infections.

It's something that few people think about, but how often does anyone clean their cell phone? We're all being told relentlessly to wash our hands. Especially if we're employees of the restaurant in which the restroom that carries the notice is housed.

But cell phones sit in fluff-filled pockets, on dirty train tables, in scarcely pristine meeting rooms, on car seats that may have recently been vacated by the bottom of someone not necessarily as anally retentive as ourselves, and then we put them to our fingers, our ears, and our mouths.

Of course, cell phones are vital tools in hospitals. The question now might be: how do you get those over-stressed, over-partied doctors to clean their cell phones with alcohol-based disinfectants?