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You may want to read the article before jumping to conclusions. The authors have identified many of the plants and animals as those of the New World, including specific breeds of cattle introduced from Spain, animals like the Ocelot, and others. Their study is very thorough, and it includes study of texts they have found with similar scripts and languages. Their conclusion is that it came from 16th century Spain, and was written in an Aztec language by natives who had been educated by the Spanish (and their evidence for this is quite convincing).

Read this for a contrary (and, I think, better informed) view.

cant tell if expert or 'expert', but look: http://www.ciphermysteries.com... found some more german critics http://scienceblogs.de/klausis...

If only the two authors were as good at researching historical mysteries as the American Botanical Council (ha!) is at writing press releases. Gosh, are we supposed to say "Hooray for the two plucky outsiders, disregarding or trashing everything that might possibly stand in the way of their flaky narrative"? Bless 'em, but this is the kind of super-selective nonsense that makes idiot TV history documentary producers go all moist and short of breath. Lord save us from such tosh. Anyway, here's a link to my rather more specific review of their New Spain Nahuatl Voynich theory:- http://www.ciphermysteries.com...

Case in point. The WWII carrier pigeon letter that was found in an excavated chimney in England last year. It had a short code sequence. The Internets (including slashdot) were all a buzz with trying to crack it to see what it actually said. This went on for months, and no one could do it. People were speculating that it was a OTP, and thus "Impossible" to crack. When all it took was some dude in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada who dragged out an old RAF recon code book they had in their attic and translated the whole mess in about 20 minutes.

No he didn't.

No idea how anyone thinks this holds up to even a cursory examination ...

For a better research insight I can recommend http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2012/12/11/at-last-the-secret-history-of-that-dead-cipher-pigeon as a good read ... It does claim to decipher the code but provides some coherent analysis around the origin of the message.

Dubious, right? If nobody knows, mandating outside references exudes oddness. Variable acronyms lose time in nervy efforts! :-) In other words, the initial-based decryption as claimed looks like hopeful nonsense rather than a proper decryption as such. More here:- http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2012/12/16/dead-ww2-pigeon-cipher-cracked-with-ww1-codebook-says-the-mail-errr-really

Ok, never mind about the AOAKN: http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2012/11/02/dead-pigeon-sparks-ww2-cipher-mystery

And decryption efforts are being coordinated here: http://en.reddit.com/r/cryptography/comments/12jipi/ww2_pigeon_carried_an_encrypted_text_here_it_is/.

(Thanks, by the way, for the info about all WWII German spies in the UK.)

They should have used the chaocipher. That should be way past its copyright period. Ta!

I've just put up a follow-up Chaocipher post which discusses the parallels between Byrne's cryptography and chaos theory, if you're interested. :-)

That's my blog: I've been documenting Edith Sherwood's amazing (but wobbly) Voynich claims for the last few years, such as:-
(1) That a very young Leonardo da Vinci wrote it
Problem: LdV was left-handed, while the Voynich Ms was written by a right-hander. D'oh!
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/01/25/mona-lisa-overkill

(2) That she has managed to decode the Voynich plants
Problem: her botany and history both seem thin (if not actually transparent). Duh!
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/09/13/edith-sherwoods-voynich-plants

(3) That the VMs is anagrammed, as evidenced by the unreadable marginalia on the back page
Problem: this is just optimistic rubbish, based on her reading of the third letter. Drat! See the above link as well as:-
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/04/11/a-guide-to-leonardo-da-vincis-handwriting

Honestly, why does she keep posting up this stuff? And (perhaps more interestingly) why does she keep promoting it via Google Adwords? Given that she must have spent thousands of dollars by now, perhaps she's planning to write an amazing "The-Voynich-was-by-Leonardo" book? All nonsensical grist for the long-suffering Voynich mill, I'm afraid. :-(

That's my blog: I've been documenting Edith Sherwood's amazing (but wobbly) Voynich claims for the last few years, such as:-
(1) That a very young Leonardo da Vinci wrote it
Problem: LdV was left-handed, while the Voynich Ms was written by a right-hander. D'oh!
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/01/25/mona-lisa-overkill

(2) That she has managed to decode the Voynich plants
Problem: her botany and history both seem thin (if not actually transparent). Duh!
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/09/13/edith-sherwoods-voynich-plants

(3) That the VMs is anagrammed, as evidenced by the unreadable marginalia on the back page
Problem: this is just optimistic rubbish, based on her reading of the third letter. Drat! See the above link as well as:-
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/04/11/a-guide-to-leonardo-da-vincis-handwriting

Honestly, why does she keep posting up this stuff? And (perhaps more interestingly) why does she keep promoting it via Google Adwords? Given that she must have spent thousands of dollars by now, perhaps she's planning to write an amazing "The-Voynich-was-by-Leonardo" book? All nonsensical grist for the long-suffering Voynich mill, I'm afraid. :-(

That's my blog: I've been documenting Edith Sherwood's amazing (but wobbly) Voynich claims for the last few years, such as:-
(1) That a very young Leonardo da Vinci wrote it
Problem: LdV was left-handed, while the Voynich Ms was written by a right-hander. D'oh!
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/01/25/mona-lisa-overkill

(2) That she has managed to decode the Voynich plants
Problem: her botany and history both seem thin (if not actually transparent). Duh!
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2008/09/13/edith-sherwoods-voynich-plants

(3) That the VMs is anagrammed, as evidenced by the unreadable marginalia on the back page
Problem: this is just optimistic rubbish, based on her reading of the third letter. Drat! See the above link as well as:-
http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/04/11/a-guide-to-leonardo-da-vincis-handwriting

Honestly, why does she keep posting up this stuff? And (perhaps more interestingly) why does she keep promoting it via Google Adwords? Given that she must have spent thousands of dollars by now, perhaps she's planning to write an amazing "The-Voynich-was-by-Leonardo" book? All nonsensical grist for the long-suffering Voynich mill, I'm afraid. :-(

yeah, don't worry. You can read it. It's total garbage. Not a crack at all. TFA was debunked back in February. (in case you miss the link above: http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/02/17/edith-sherwoods-anagram-cipher )

That's a pretty lame debunking. He repeats that the letter distribution is wrong, calls a few things "wobbly", points out that a non-botanist, non-Italian speaker translated a medieval Italian word into a plant that wasn't used there, and as an aside "doubts" that she cracked a line of text.

yeah, don't worry. You can read it. It's total garbage. Not a crack at all. TFA was debunked back in February. (in case you miss the link above: http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/02/17/edith-sherwoods-anagram-cipher )

http://www.ciphermysteries.com/2009/02/17/edith-sherwoods-anagram-cipher