Greek gizmo

When a Roman vessel was discovered off the Greek island of Antikythera in 1900, divers brought up half of a strange object known as the Antikythera mechanism. Of Greek origin and dating to the first century B.C.E., it was determined in the 1970s to be an analog computer used to predict celestial movement, including eclipses. This month, an international team of scientists is poised to descend to the wreck to test a new Iron-Man-like diving suit (IMAGES AND VIDEO HERE), and also hope to recover the rest of the mechanism. Underwater archaeologist Brendan P. Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, U.S., is directing the project and admits, "This is the kind of thing that quite literally wakes me up in the middle of the night. I can’t sleep because I’m so excited.”

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