Newsdesk Archive

Exactly 30 years ago today, astronomer Jerry Ehman was looking over a printout of radio data from Ohio State University's Big Ear Radio Observatory when he saw a string of code so remarkable that he had to circle it and scribble "Wow!" in the margin. The printout recorded an anomalous signal so strong that it had to come from an extraordinary source.Was it a burst of human-made interference? Or an alien broadcast from the stars? No one knows. The source of the "Wow" signal has never been heard from again - even though astronomers have looked for it dozens of times.Now the SETI Institute is gearing up to look for it one more time, using the latest tool for seeking signals from extraterrestrial civilizations: the Allen Telescope Array in California.

New Delhi, Aug 17 : A group of archaeological experts and Indian Navy divers have conducted the first scientific survey off the Gujarat coast to establish whether or not the ruins on the seabed are of the mythological city of Dwarka, the capital of Hindu god Krishna."The area off the Samudranaraya temple at (present day) Dwarka is known to contain structures which have been widely reported and interpreted by renowned scholars. However, no scientific study of the area had been conducted so far," Alok Tripathi of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) told reporters here Friday."We found building blocks and collected samples. These have been sent for dating to establish the antiquity of the site," Tripathi, who is the ASI's only marine archaeologist, added.

The moon should be developed as a sanctuary for civilization in case of a cataclysmic cosmic impact, according to an international team of experts. NASA already has blueprints to create a permanent lunar outpost by the 2020s. (Read: "Moon Base Announced by NASA" [December 4, 2006].) But that plan should be expanded to include a way to preserve humanity's learning, culture, and technology if Earth is hit by a doomsday asteroid or comet, said Jim Burke of International Space University (ISU) in France. Burke, once a project manager on some of the earliest American lunar landings, now heads an ISU study on surviving a collision with a near-Earth object.

An ancient Egyptian noblewoman's large stone coffin has been found in a tomb near the pyramid of Unas, experts announced yesterday.Archaeologists were digging near the crumbling pyramid in Saqqâra, 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of Cairo, when they discovered the tomb, which had been built more than 600 years before the noblewoman's death. (Check out a map of ancient Saqqâra.)The find is another example of the enduring gravity of ancient Egypt's sacred places, said expedition leader Ola el-Aguizy of Cairo University.El-Aguizy said the coffin of the noblewoman, named Sekhemet Nefret, was the first from Egypt's 27th dynasty (525 to 402 B.C.) to be found in this part of Saqqâra, an ancient royal burial ground.

A massive stone bowl believed to be between 4,000 and 6,000 years old has been stolen from a beach on Mayne Island, an area belonging to the Tsartlip First Nation.Drag marks are visible down Helen Point Beach and band members assume a large boat was used to remove the bowl, said Chief Chris Tom."It has to weigh at least a couple of tonnes. This was not done on the spur of the moment. Someone must have recognized it and made plans," he said. "It has to weigh at least a couple of tonnes. This was not done on the spur of the moment. Someone must have recognized it and made plans," he said. "It would have taken at least six guys to move it."The bowl, last seen July 25, was embedded into the bank under strong tree roots, but the wash from B.C. Ferries exposed it, Tom said.The bowl was stolen previously about 15 years ago, but, after publicity, was returned to the beach anonymously, Tom said.

Bulgarian archaeologists announced they have discovered the biggest ancient tank for storing water on the Balkans, etched into the rock sanctuary of Perperikon, near Kardzhali in southern Bulgaria.Top archaeologist Nikolay Ovcharov, who unearthed the water tank to add it to the long list of exciting finds from the rock sanctuary, says the discovery proves that there were times when Perperikon was densely populated and with huge water supplies.The tank, measuring twelve-meter-long, six-meter-wide and six-meter-deep, has a capacity of 432 000 litres.

Fuxian Lake stretches out through Chengjiang County, Jiangchuan County and Huaning County in Yunnan Province, about 60 kilometers to Kunming City, spanning an area of 212 square kilometers.The lake is ranked third largest in Yunnan, right after the Dianchi Lake and the Erhai Lake. Also the deepest lake in Yunnan, it is 155 meters deep at its greatest depth.One day, Geng Wei, a specialized diver, found a strange phenomenon under the lake. He discovered many stone materials, including flagstones and stone strips with thick moss above them, could be seen.Geng Wei believed the stones might be from a remote time. However, why were they underwater? Where did they come from? With these questions, Geng remember a mystical legend about the lake . Local people often said residents could see a city-like silhouette under the lake from the nearby mountains on a fine, calm day.Was it the ancient city mentioned in the legend? In order to explore this riddle, Geng dove into the waters some 38 times to carry on surveys. He finally wrote a report to notify related official departments and experts in Yunnan Province of his findings.Read more of this article ....

After 16 years' hard work, Xiao Jing Jin Xi Yong, from Korea, has tracked down a large underground kingdom, located below the Chinese Inner Mongolian prairie. The origins of this most ancient Chinese civilization are unknown.In the summer of 2006, on the unvisited wilderness, Mr. Jin came across an amazing site. In a giant stone chamber grave there were dozens of fine peerless black jade beast and human statues facing a skeleton as if expressing some kind of awe.Further investigation brought more amazing discoveries:

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) - A volcano erupted in the remote desert of northeastern Ethiopia, leaving at least two people missing, the state-run Ethiopian News Agency said.The volcano spewed lava for about two hours Sunday in the Afar region, a spectacular yet barren expanse of volcanoes and ancient salt mines inhabited by nomads, bandits and rebels.News of the eruption was slow to emerge, surfacing mid-week, because of the site's remote location and it was reported to government officials via telegram.The Ethiopian News Agency said two people were missing but didn't provide any other details.

At least 450 people were feared dead and thousands more injured or missing after a powerful earthquake struck southern Peru. The quake caused the region's familiar adobe houses to crumble, and caused two churches full of worshippers to collapse in the cities of Ica and Pisco, more than 100 miles south of the capital, Lima.Rescue workers and local journalists reported scenes of widespread devastation, as homeless survivors walked around in a daze, searching for friends and relatives and constructing makeshift sleeping quarters on the cracked streets and pavements of their levelled neighbourhoods.

Parts of Greater Manchester have been rocked by an earthquake.The tremor at 1150 BST on Friday affected Manchester centre, Reddish, Didsbury, Failsworth and Denton.Seismologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS), Edinburgh say it was 2.5 on the Richter Scale, but there are no reports of any injuries or damage.The BGS say these tremors are not uncommon and there are eight or nine a year in Britain. Manchester was hit by a series of tremors five years ago.

A 6.7-MAGNITUDE earthquake has struck near the Solomon Islands capital Honiara, rattling buildings and sending fearful residents fleeing to higher ground.The US Geological Survey said the quake's epicentre was about 2km under the sea, about 75km west-southwest of the capital, Honiara.It struck around 8pm local time (07:00 AEST).There were no immediate reports of serious damage and the Hawaii-based Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre said on its website that a destructive Pacific-wide tsunami was not expected.Thousands of Honiara residents who live on the coast made their way up the city's hills as national disaster officials advised people over the radio to head for higher ground and watch for rising seas.

Anchorage, Alaska - The Pavlof Volcano on the Alaska Peninsula erupted Wednesday sending lava down its flanks and an ash plume up 8,400 feet.The most active volcano in the Aleutian rim of fire, scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory say the small eruption could be a precursor to an even larger one.

You'll never guess what was in Barbara Morgan's pocket when she blasted off from Kennedy Space Center last week onboard space shuttle Endeavour.The teacher-turned-astronaut carried millions of basil seeds into orbit and onto the International Space Station. Basil ... in space? Well, you never know when the ISS might run into some bland spaghetti sauce.Seriously, basil in space is cutting-edge research. Astronauts on future missions to the Moon and beyond are going to want to take plants along for the ride--for food, oxygen and even companionship. It's important for NASA to learn how seeds endure space conditions and germinate in low gravity.In this case, it's not only NASA doing the learning; kids will be too.Some of the basil seeds will remain on the station to be grown in low gravity. The rest will be returned to Earth and divided into kits for students to study. They'll measure seed germination rates--how fast space basil grows compared to Earth basil--and also learn more about the scientific method. Teachers, click here for information on how to participate.

SHENZHEN, China-- At least 20,000 police surveillance cameras are being installed along streets here in southern China and will soon be guided by sophisticated computer software from an American-financed company to recognize automatically the faces of police suspects and detect unusual activity.Starting this month in a port neighborhood and then spreading across Shenzhen, a city of 12.4 million people, residency cards fitted with powerful computer chips programmed by the same company will be issued to most citizens.

A devon archaeologist believes he has found the Lost City of Apollo. Dennis Price, who shot to prominence after finding a missing altar stone from Stonehenge, is the man behind what could be an amazing discovery. Mr Price, a father-of-two who lives in Broadclyst, has undertaken years of research on the stone circle.With the help of language experts from Exeter University, Mr Price has translated the early works of the Greek mariner Pytheas of Massilia, who was one of the earliest visitors to Britain, in around 325BC, and who wrote of the City of Apollo.Now, after dedicated work, Mr Price believes he has solved the ancient mystery of just where it is.He said: "Just a mile or so to the east of Stonehenge is a gigantic prehistoric earthwork called Vespasian's Camp, named in later years by William Camden after the same Vespasian who subjugated the south west of England during the Roman invasion of Britain in 43AD.

Archeologists have discovered a footprint made by the sandal of a Roman soldier - one of the few such finds in the world - in a wall surrounding the Hellenistic-Roman city of Sussita, east of Lake Kinneret. The discovery of the print made by a hobnailed sandal, the kind used by the Roman legions during the time when Rome ruled the region, led to the presumption that legionnaires or former legionnaires participated in the construction of walls such as the one in which the footprint was found. "We know that urban construction projects in Israel were run by the cities themselves, and the Roman imperial system wasn't involved," said Professor Arthur Segal of Haifa University, who is heading the excavation.

By Bradley T. LepperTom Dillehay, an archaeologist with Vanderbilt University, and several colleagues announced last month in the journal Science that they had recovered remarkably early evidence for agriculture in South America. Working at several sites in the Nanchoc Valley of northern Peru, they found squash seeds that were more than 9,000 years old. This is nearly twice as old as previously reported farming evidence in the region.Dillehay and his co-authors point out that one of the most important aspects of this discovery is that "horticulture and cultural complexity developed in the Americas nearly as early as it did in many parts of the Old World."

A distant star that hurtles through space at extraordinary speeds has a huge, comet-like tail trailing in its wake, astronomers say. The appendage, which measures a colossal 13 light years in length, was spotted by Nasa's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (Galex) space telescope. The researchers said that nothing like it had ever been spotted around a star. They believe the star, known as Mira, will help them to study what happens as stars meet their demise. Mark Seibert, a co-author of the paper, which was published in the journal Nature, and a scientist at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, said: "This is an utterly new phenomenon to us, and we are still in the process of understanding the physics involved."

WASHINGTON -- Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer.Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of "wet artificial life." "It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it," said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, one of those in the race. "We're talking about a technology that could change our world in fundamental ways -- in ways impossible to predict."

A rock will be hurled into space on a rocket and subjected to the fiery heat of re-entry into Earth's atmosphere to test whether life could have hitched a ride from one planet to another in debris from an asteroid strike.The rock is one of 35 experiments to fly on a European Space Agency mission called Foton M3, which is set to launch on 14 September from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.Some scientists say life could have spread around the solar system by hitching rides inside rocks blasted from one planet or moon to another by asteroid impacts.

ROME (Reuters) - Archaeologists have discovered a more than 2,000-year-old Etruscan tomb perfectly preserved in the hills of Tuscany with a treasure trove of artefacts inside, including urns that hold the remains of about 30 people.The tomb, in the Tuscan town of Civitella Paganico, probably dates from between the 1st and 3rd centuries B.C., when Etruscan power was in decline, Andrea Marcocci, who led digging at the site, told Reuters."It's quite rare to find a tomb intact like this," said Marcocci, who had suspected one might exist in the area after work on a nearby road scattered pieces of artefacts.

On barren desert in Saudi Arabia, British engineers and scientists are to build a stately pleasure dome.The vast, covered "garden of ages" will recreate the 400-million-year-old history of Earth's plants, trees and flowers.The dome - near Riyadh, the capital - will cover almost 10ha and become the world's largest indoor garden.Plants from key botanical epochs will be grown and displayed in seven sections inside two interlocking, crescent-shaped enclosures.The project - run on renewable energy and using a minimum of water - is intended to revitalise tourism.

A 13,000-year-old carving discovered in an ancient cave is being hailed as one of the most significant examples of prehistoric art ever found in Britain.The carving - a little larger than a man's hand - is only the second piece of representational cave art found in Britain which is contemporary with the golden age of cave art in Europe. It was discovered in Gough's Cave at Cheddar Caves and Gorge, Somerset, by researchers from Bristol University. Gough's Cave is the largest showcave at Cheddar and was home to Stone Age ancestors. It was re-discovered by Richard Gough in 1890.Britain had a flourishing Stone Age culture but unlike prehistoric sites in France and Spain no cave paintings or carvings had been found until recently, when the discovery of Stone Age carvings of animals and humans at Cresswell Crags, near Sheffield in April 2003 launched a new hunt for prehistoric cave art.

The great medieval temple of Angkor Wat in Cambodia was once at the centre of a sprawling urban settlement, according to a new, detailed map of the area.Using Nasa satellites, an international team have discovered at least 74 new temples and complex irrigation systems. The map, published in the journal PNAS, extends the known settlement by 1000 sq km, about the size of Los Angeles. Analysis also lends weight to the theory that Angkor's residents were architects of the city's demise. "The large-scale city engineered its own downfall by disrupting its local environment by expanding continuously into the surrounding forests," said Damian Evans of the University of Sydney and one of the authors of the paper and map.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese farming experts are considering planting potatoes instead of rice and wheat as a way to beat crippling drought each year, state media said on Tuesday.But the government would have to provide subsidies to persuade farmers to make the switch, they said."The potato is more drought-resistant than rice and wheat, which suits China better as 60 percent of the country's arable land is dry," Qu Dongyu, a potato farming specialist with the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was quoted by Xinhua news agency as saying.

BEIJING (AFP) - China's historic Silk Road city of Dunhuang and its archaeological treasures are under threat from the effects of climate change, human activity and mismanagement, state media reported on Sunday. The oasis city, home to the UN World Heritage-listed Mogao Grottoes, has recently seen rivers run dry, vegetation die off, underground water levels fall sharply and sand storms increase, Xinhua news agency said.Dunhuang was an important stop on the Silk Road, while the grottoes -- also called the Cave of a Thousand Buddhas -- house one of the world's most extensive and historic Buddhist temple complexes, stretching back more than 1,500 years.But population pressures, haphazard development and a changing climate now "threaten the cultural relics and local scenery", Xinhua quoted an unnamed official with the national environment watchdog as saying.

One of the few scientific success stories of the International Space Station has been its use to grow large, pure crystals in microgravity (see Space station unlocks new world of crystals).Now scientists from the Netherlands and Japan have shown that a strong magnetic field can mimic the effects of microgravity when growing protein crystals. The new Earth-bound technique could provide a cheaper and easier way to produce crystals of the same quality as those grown aboard the ISS.The approach uses the same principle famously employed to levitate a live frog in 1997. This exploits the fact that diamagnetic materials - including most organic materials - are repelled by very strong magnetic fields as a result of changes in the orbital motion of their electrons.Researchers at the High Field Magnet Laboratory at Radboud University in Nijmegen and colleagues at Tohoku University, Japan, have now shown that this effect can be used to grow a pure crystal of the protein lysozyme.

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Homo erectus, long viewed as a crucial evolutionary link between modern humans and their tree-dwelling ancestors, may have been more ape-like than previously thought, scientists unveiling new-found fossils said on Thursday.Revealing an ancient skull and a jawbone from two early branches of the human family tree -- Homo erectus and Homo habilis -- a team of Kenyan scientists said they were surprised to find that early female hominids were much smaller than males.The skull was the first discovery of a female Homo erectus.It suggests mankind's upright ancestors may have been physiologically closer to modern gorillas and chimpanzees, which also exhibit big differences in size between males and females, than had been supposed.

WASHINGTON - Around the middle of the 19th century the Arctic took a sooty turn for the worse, according to researchers studying how humans have affected the climate.Soot can darken the snow, causing it to absorb sunlight, warm up and melt. That, in turn, can add to local climate warming by exposing darker ground which absorbs energy from the sun that the white snow would have reflected.Ice cores from before about 1850 show most soot came from forest fires. But since then, black soot in the snow has increased several times over and most now comes from industrial activities, according to a paper in Thursday's online edition of the journal Science.In a separate paper in that journal, a team of British researchers forecast that climate warming will slow for about a decade, then bound back to record-setting temperatures.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Glaciers that crown Mexico's tallest mountains and inspired Aztec legends of lost love and a snake god could disappear within a few decades, with scientists pointing to global warming as a cause of their demise."We estimate the glaciers could last another 20 or 30 years," Hugo Delgado, a glaciologist at Mexico City's UNAM university, said this week.Mexico's two remaining glacial fields hold some of the world's few tropical glaciers, which are also found in South America, Africa and Papua New Guinea but are melting fast as world temperatures rise.The rise in temperatures has accelerated in recent decades and most scientists believe the use of fossil fuels is to blame.

ZURICH (Reuters) - An amateur paleontologist in Switzerland may have unearthed Europe's largest dinosaur mass grave after he dug up the remains of two Plateosaurus. The dinosaurs' bones came to light during house-building in the village of Frick, near the German border."A hobby paleontologist looked at a construction site for a house and happened to discover the bones," said Monica Ruembeli from the Frick dinosaur museum.The finds show that an area known for Plateosaurus finds for decades may be much larger than originally thought."It could be that the area extends for 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles) and in that case, you could certainly say it's the biggest site in Europe," said Martin Sander, a dinosaur paleontologist at the university of Bonn in Germany.

North Americans have always taken the heat for killing off millions of American bison during the early 1800s. A new study, however, pins the blame on Europeans. Europe's advanced tanning expertise drove the large, iconic mammal to near extinction in the United States, according to a a review of international trade records, diaries and other historical documents conducted by University of Calgary environmental economist M. Scott Taylor. "The story of the buffalo slaughter is surprisingly not, at bottom, an American one," Taylor said.

A huge, exquisitely carved marble statue of the Roman emperor Hadrian is the latest find from Sagalassos, an ancient Greco-Roman city in south-central Turkey. Archaeologists estimate that the figure was originally between 13 and 16 feet in height (four to five meters). It is, says excavation director Marc Waelkens, one of the most beautiful portraits of Hadrian ever found. The discovery was made by archaeologists from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), who, under Waelkens' direction, have been investigating the site since 1990. Last month a new excavation campaign started, and the Belgians resumed work at the Roman Bath, focusing on the southeastern corner of the complex. On Sunday the first fragments of a over life-size statue, a foot and part of a leg, were unearthed. The foot is 31.5 inches (0.80 meters) long; the leg, from just above the knee to the ankle, is nearly five feet (1.5 meters). The elaborate sandal depicted on the footed indicated to the archaeologists that the fragments were from the statue of an emperor. On Monday, the almost intact head of the statue was discovered, revealing that the statue was of Hadrian, who ruled from A.D. 117 to 138. The head measures more than 27 inches (0.70 meters). Construction of the bath complex in Sagalassos was started during Hadrian's reign, though the building was finished only several decades later. The bath complex is one of several major building projects at Sagalassos that can be dated to the time of Hadrian and the city had a sanctuary of the imperial cult dedicated to Hadrian and his successor Antoninus Pius.

A 1.5-million-year-old skull and an equally old jaw found in Kenya are helping rewrite the history of early man, eliminating one reputed ancestor from the human lineage and suggesting that another was much more primitive than previously believed, researchers said Wednesday.Analysis of the jawbone shows that Homo habilis, once thought to be a direct ancestor of Homo erectus and thus of humans, lived side by side with H. erectus, making them sister species rather than mother and daughter."They coexisted at the same time and in the same place for half a million years," said anthropologist Fred Spoor of University College London, a coauthor of the paper appearing in the journal Nature. "How likely is it that one would give rise to the other?"

A race against time is under way to try to save a Stone Age settlement found buried at the bottom of the sea in the Solent.Eight thousand years ago the area would have been dry land, a valley and woodland criss-crossed by rivers. A swamped prehistoric forest was identified off the northern Isle of Wight coast in the 1980s, but Bouldnor Cliff's buried Stone Age village was only found - by chance - a few years ago.Divers taking part in a routine survey spotted a lobster cleaning out its burrow on the seabed and to their surprise the animal was throwing out dozens of pieces of worked flint. Maritime archaeologists from the Hampshire and Wight Trust for Maritime Archaeology have carried out a number of underwater excavations at the 8,000-year-old site.

A dam around the Sydney Opera House and the destruction of Aboriginal sacred sites are two extreme scenarios to be raised this week by experts assessing the impact of rising sea levels on Australian heritage sites.The National Cultural Heritage Forum will meet with assistant minister for the environment John Cobb later this week to stress that climate change is not just about the natural environment.The forum will say iconic sites such as Mawson's Hut in Antarctica, the Sydney Opera House, historic rural homesteads and woolsheds, and sacred Aboriginal sites in northern Australia are all threatened by rising sea levels and temperature changes.Peter Phillips, president of the Australian chapter of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, says many significant sites from European and Aboriginal settlement are in coastal areas."If sea levels rise they will all be gone," says Phillips, who is on the forum. "We want the minister to realise that there are genuine threats, but there are genuine solutions. "At its most extreme example it could mean building a dam around the Opera House."

A wireless technology that could hasten the arrival of the connected digital home has been give the green light by media regulator Ofcom. Ultra-Wideband (UWB), as it is known, can be used to connect devices such as PCs, mp3 players and digital cameras. New legislation will mean UK users will not need a licence to use UWB devices when they hits shelves in the future. UWB uses part of the radio spectrum to transfer large amounts of data, such as media files, over short distances.

A major US music industry body has joined other businesses in seeking to sue video-sharing website YouTube. The National Musical Publishers' Association says some songwriters are not being properly compensated when their music appears on the site. But YouTube says it stays within the law by immediately taking down clips found to be in breach of copyright. The legal action has been combined with those of several other companies, including Viacom and Nickelodeon.

An international team of astronomers has discovered the largest known planet orbiting another star. The "transiting" planet - meaning one that passes in front of its parent star as seen from Earth - is about 70% larger than Jupiter. But the presumed "gas giant" has a much lower mass than Jupiter - the biggest planet in our Solar System - making it of extremely low density. Details of the work are to appear in the Astrophysical Journal. The new exoplanet, called TrES-4, is located in the constellation of Hercules and was discovered by a team working on the Transatlantic Exoplanet Survey (TrES).

A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex. The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study. The human cranium was found during World War II mining operations in 1942, in a cave littered with Ice Age cave bear remains. Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature.

For decades, school children have learned that human civilization emerged about 5000 years ago along the Euphrates River in Mesopotamia, along the Nile, and along the Indus River. But archaeologists working in a broad arc from the Russian steppes through Iran and onto the Arabian Peninsula are finding evidence that a complex network of cities may have thrived across the region in roughly the same era, suggesting a dramatic new view of the emergence of human civilization.In a feature in the 3 August issue of Science, news writer Andrew Lawler details the discoveries by teams of researchers and the emerging multinational effort to piece together the array of new evidence into a unified understanding.

A 1,300-year-old skeleton buried with a cache of gold artifacts has been found in a Bolivian pyramid, archaeologists say. The remains are believed to belong to an elite member of the ancient Tiwanaku culture, which thrived on the shores of Lake Titicaca from about A.D. 400 to 1200 (see Bolivia map). Scientists found the bones and offerings this spring in the upper reaches of the Akapana pyramid, a heavily looted temple experts say is one of the largest pre-Hispanic structures in South America.

Four gigantic galaxies have been seen crashing into one another in one of the biggest cosmic collisions ever seen. A US team of astronomers observed the four-way cosmic smash-up using Nasa's Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes along with ground-based observatories. The clashing galaxies are expected to eventually merge into a single, behemoth galaxy up to 10 times as massive as our own Milky Way. Details of the research appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

WAY of making tiny objects levitate by reversing a mysterious force of nature has been proposed by two physicists at a Scottish university.It centres on a phenomenon called the "Casimir force", which was predicted by quantum physicists in 1948 although it was first measured by scientists just ten years ago. The force is caused by a quirk of nature which, at tiny scales, enables particles to pop into existence from nowhere. This creates a force which will push together two objects placed very close to each other. It can also be demonstrated by a gecko's ability to stick to a surface with just one toe. The Scottish pair's theory is now being examined by a leading American scientist, who may put the ideas into practice.

A theory put forth by a group of 25 geo-scientists suggests that a massive comet exploded over Canada, possibly wiping out both beast and man around 12,900 years ago, and pushing the earth into another ice age. University of South Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear said the theory may not be such "out-of-this-world" thinking based on his study of ancient stone-tool artifacts he and his team have excavated from the Topper dig site in Allendale, as well as ones found in Georgia, North Carolina and Virginia. The tools, or fluted spear points, made by flaking and chipping flint, were used for hunting and made by the Clovis people, who lived 13,100 to 12,900 years ago, and from the Redstone people who emerged afterwards. The two points are distinctly different in appearance, with Redstone points more impressively long and steeple-shaped. "I saw a tremendous drop-off of Redstone points after Clovis," said Goodyear. "When you see such a widespread decline or pattern like that, you really have to wonder whether there is a population decline to go with it."

WASHINGTON: Geologists have discovered 1.43 billion-year-old fossils of deep-sea microbes, providing more evidence that life may have originated on the bottom of the ocean. The ancient black smoker chimneys, unearthed in a Chinese mine, are one billion years older than similar fossils previously identified. They are also nearly identical to the archaea- and bacteria-harbouring structures found on seabeds. Black smoker chimneys develop at submerged openings in the Earth's crust that spew out mineral-rich water as hot as 400 degrees Celsius. Bacteria that don't depend on sunlight or oxygen move into the fragile chimneys that grow around the vents and feed on the dissolved minerals. The stony chimneys can grow more than 50 feet (15 meters) tall, but retrieving even a modern chimney sample is extremely difficult, as they're fragile and can crumble when touched.

The Home Office is considering giving the police the power to take a DNA sample on the street, without taking the suspect to a police station, as well as taking samples from suspects in relatively minor offences such as littering, speeding or not wearing a seat belt.The move comes as an official genetics watchdog prepares a public inquiry into the police national DNA database, following concern over the retention of samples from people acquitted of any offence, and disclosure that the database holds DNA records for one in three of British black males.The database is the largest in the world, with 3.4m profiles, more than 5% of the UK population. If the powers are granted, it would expand massively.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have discovered what they think are ruins of an Aztec pyramid razed by vengeful Spanish conquerors in what is now one of Mexico City's most crime-ridden districts.Construction workers unearthed ancient walls in the busy Iztapalapa neighborhood in June, and government archeologists said on Wednesday they believe they may be part of the main pyramid of the Aztec city, destroyed by conquistador Hernan Cortes in the 16th century.Iztapalapa, now infamous for violent crime and drug dealing, has grown into a sprawling, poor district of the capital, obscuring the ruins."We knew the general location but couldn't explore because it's a big urban area," said government archeologist Jesus Sanchez, who is director of the site.

A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex. The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study. The human cranium was found during World War II mining operations in 1942, in a cave littered with Ice Age cave bear remains. Recently the fossil was radiocarbon dated to 33,000 years ago and thoroughly examined, revealing the controversial anatomical feature.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists have discovered what they think are ruins of an Aztec pyramid razed by vengeful Spanish conquerors in what is now one of Mexico City's most crime-ridden districts.Construction workers unearthed ancient walls in the busy Iztapalapa neighborhood in June, and government archeologists said on Wednesday they believe they may be part of the main pyramid of the Aztec city, destroyed by conquistador Hernan Cortes in the 16th century.Iztapalapa, now infamous for violent crime and drug dealing, has grown into a sprawling, poor district of the capital, obscuring the ruins."We knew the general location but couldn't explore because it's a big urban area," said government archeologist Jesus Sanchez, who is director of the site

Orangutan communication resembles a game of charades, a study suggests.Researchers from St Andrews University have shown that the animals intentionally modify or repeat their signals to get their messages across. The scientists said they believed all great apes could have this capability, suggesting that the skill may have evolved millions of years ago. The study, which is published in the journal Current Biology, involved six orangutans living in two zoos. Richard Byrne, an evolutionary psychologist and an author on the paper, said: "We were interested in the intentions behind communication.

ATHENS -- Greek archaeologists plan to excavate an ancient colony founded by Alexander the Great in the Gulf of Kuwait in the fourth century BC, officials said Wednesday. "The site on Failaka Island is of particular importance to [Greece] as it was founded by Macedonians and other Greeks on Alexander the Great's expeditionary force," said culture ministry general secretary Christos Zahopoulos. The agreement between Greece and Kuwait signed in July will enable the Greek team to excavate the ancient town of Icarus on the island, organize the site, and restore its finds, the ministry said in a statement.

ROME - Archaeologists excavating an ancient tannery believed to be the largest ever found in Rome said Tuesday they might need to move the entire work site, which is being threatened by railroad construction. The 1,255-square-yard complex includes a tannery dating to the second or third century, as well as burial sites and part of a Roman road. At least 97 tubs, some measuring more than three feet in diameter, have been dug up so far in the tannery, archaeologists said.The complex, located in the Casal Bertone area in the outskirts of Rome, lies between two tunnels of a high-speed railway being built to link Rome and Naples, said Stefano Musco, the director of the archaeological excavations."(Even though) there are only 109 yards of railway left to build, the archaeological complex has no chance of surviving," Musco told reporters during a tour of the dig. "Either it stays the way it is and the works are stopped or, if the railway must be built, these remains will have to be cut out and rebuilt entirely."

As modern officials try to assess the risk global warming might present to the American Southwest, they're paying a lot of attention to what scientists say about how climate changes affected the region's ancient past. Archaeologist Kristen Kuckelman has spent many years digging in the ruins of ancient farming villages on the Colorado Plateau and analyzing the artifacts and specimens she takes from them. The people who lived in these ancient villages, which are known as pueblos, were part of a large culture that thrived for several hundred years in the high desert plain that covers parts of modern Utah, New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona. Archaeologists call them Anasazi, or Ancient Pueblo People. One of the best known of their pueblos is in Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado. But sometime in the late 1200s, the Anasazi abandoned all of their pueblos. And for more than a hundred years, archaeologists have been perplexed about why.

Changes in the brightness and color over small areas of the moon's surface, known as Transient Lunar Phenomena, or TLP, have been observed telescopically for hundreds of years. The optical flashes have been seen by skywatchers but rarely photographed."People over the years have attributed TLPs to all sorts of effects: turbulence in Earth's atmosphere, visual physiological effects, atmospheric smearing of light like a prism, and even psychological effects like hysteria or planted suggestion," said Columbia University researcher Arlin Crotts.Using data from decades-old observations, Crotts and colleagues have now found a strong correlation between TLP sightings and regions where lunar orbiting spacecraft have detected gas leaking out from beneath the lunar surface.

Norwegian arhaeologists are puzzled by a find which indicates an Inca Indian died and was buried in the Oestfold city of Sarpsborg 1000 years ago.The remains of two elderly men and a baby were discovered during work in a garden, and one of the skulls indicates that the man was an Inca Indian. - There is a genetic flaw in the neck, which is believed to be limited to the Incas in Peru, says arahaeologist Mona Beate Buckholm. The Norway Post suggests that maybe the Vikings travelled even more widely than hitherto believed? Why could not the Viking settlers in New Foundland have strayed further down the coast on one of their fishing trips?

Work to protect and preserve an Ice Age site in Derbyshire has been completed.The project at the Ice Age cave art centre at Creswell Crags was funded by the East Midlands Development Agency and the county council. It included building new scree banks to show how the gorge would have looked about 10 to 50,000 years ago.A county council spokesperson said archaeologists were consulted during the preservation project to ensure the site's natural beauty was not spoiled.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science calls it a crisis. Atmospheric scientist Timothy L. Killeen, the president of the American Geophysical Union, says it "could harm our ability to protect our citizens." We call it plain old scary.It's the endangered future of our nation's arsenal of Earth-observing satellites, the 42 instruments that enable scientists to monitor the planet. Satellite images and colorful data sets help researchers track killer hurricanes, plan conservation efforts, manage water resources, and predict glacial melting.

Villagers in central China dug up a ton of dinosaur bones and boiled them in soup or ground them into powder for traditional medicine, believing they were from flying dragons and had healing powers.Until last year, the fossils were being sold in Henan province as "dragon bones" at about 4 yuan (50 cents) per kilogram (2.2 pounds), scientist Dong Zhiming told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

An artificial big toe found on the foot of an ancient Egyptian mummy could be the world's earliest functional fake body part, UK experts believe.A Manchester University team hope to prove that the leather and wood "Cairo toe" not only looked the part but also helped its owner walk.They will test a replica in volunteers whose right big toe is missing.If true, the toe will predate the currently considered earliest practical prosthesis - a fake leg from 300BC.

The Norman Invasion of A.D. 1066 may have brought more to England than just a new dynasty of kings. The watershed year in English history was followed by ever increasing reports of people being possessed by the devil, according to one U.S. expert.The two developments were closely linked, says Peter Dendle, an English professor at Pennsylvania State University.Furthermore, understanding how medieval England came to be "bedeviled" after the Anglo-Saxons were conquered may help explain a resurging belief in demon possession in modern Western countries, the researcher suggests. Basing his theory on medieval texts and records, Dendle says that the concept of people being demonically possessed only really caught on in England after new religious beliefs and customs were imported from overseas. Researchers had previously assumed that different parts of Christian Western Europe believed equally in demon possession in medieval times.

To date, only NASA has succeeded in sending a rover to explore our neighboring planet Mars. That is about to change. In 2011, the European Space Agency will send ExoMars to the Red Planet in search of signs that Mars is, or was, a living world. Astrobiology Field Research Editor Henry Bortman recently interviewed the ExoMars project scientist, Jorge Vago. In this, the second part of a two-part interview, Vago explains why ExoMars will focus on looking for fossil evidence of ancient life and why such evidence may be easier to find on Mars than it is on Earth.

Former BBC radio presenter Guy Leigh from AstreaMagazine.com presents a special 1 hour interview with Robert Bauval in Cairo who talks about the Orion Correlation Theory and his latest book, 'The Egypt Code', amongst other things.Click here to listen to streamed audio, or download a zipped mp3 podcast file (7.15Mb) here

Archaeologists unearthing an ancient village from an Unalaska hillside believe they've found the remains of the oldest-known Aleut whalebone mask.Much of the mask is missing -- it's mostly intact above where the cheekbones would sit -- but archaeologists are pretty sure it's about 3,000 years old, said Mike Yarborough, lead archaeologist at the dig.Stained brown by soil, cracked in two at the left temple, the discovery made early this month by a member of Yarborough's team is about 2,000 years older than any known Aleut mask, he said. It was created around the time Mayan civilization began, around the time Homer was producing the Iliad and Odyssey.

Walter Cruttenden will be AOM guest for September discussing his book:History and Celestial TimeLloyd Pye will join us in October outlining events in his book, 'The Starchild Skull'.See accompanying article: The Starchild is out of this WorldCheck this particular message here on the AOM board for more details

A metal detector enthusiast who discovered a treasure trove of nearly 600 Roman coins in a field is waiting to hear how much he will receive.After four hours' digging near Newport, Brian Stephens found 587 silver denarii dating back some 2,000 years.Fragments of a pottery container were also found nearby. The haul has been declared treasure and will be held at the National Museum Wales in Cardiff.

A US cat that is reportedly able to sense when a nursing home's residents are about to die is baffling doctors.Oscar has a habit of curling up next to patients at the home in Providence, Rhode Island, in their final hours.According to the author of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, the two-year-old cat has been observed to be correct in 25 cases so far.

The remains of a prehistoric mastodon - a mammoth-like animal - have been found in northern Greece, including intact long tusks.A Dutch scientist at the site, Dick Mol, says the find near Grevena should help explain why mastodons died out in Europe two to three million years ago.The mastodon's tusks measure 5m (16.5ft) and 4m, Mr Mol told the BBC.

BBC NEWS REPORT: Cannabis users are 40% more likely than non-users to suffer a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia, say UK experts.Writing in the Lancet, a team led by Dr Stanley Zammit from Bristol and Cardiff Universities said young people needed to be made aware of the dangers. In an additional article, experts said up to 800 schizophrenia cases a year in the UK could be linked to cannabis use. The researchers looked at 35 studies on the drug and mental health - but some experts urged caution over the results. The study found the most frequent users of cannabis have twice the risk of non-users of developing psychotic symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions. But the evidence for a link with depression and anxiety was less clear, they said.See also these reports: Daily Mail Daily Express TimesOnline Reuters Guardian Bristol University Cardiff University The Lancet

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer. The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years. "We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect." Federal health and drug enforcement officials have widely used Tashkin's previous work on marijuana to make the case that the drug is dangerous. Tashkin said that while he still believes marijuana is potentially harmful, its cancer-causing effects appear to be of less concern than previously thought.

LOS ANGELES, Ca. July 25, 2007 / Press Release /History is history, right? Not so, according to the researchers and scientists that will be gathering at the University of San Diego in La Jolla California this fall. The 4th annual "Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge" (CPAK) is the largest meeting of "alternative historians" in the world and one that is sure to raise questions about our past. Many of the authors, researchers and scientists scheduled to present have or hold unusual theories about history, such as the belief that history may be cyclical with alternating Dark and Golden Ages, a cycle Plato called: The Great Year.Presenters this year include Dr. Robert Schoch, the Boston University Geologist famed for re-dating the Sphinx (likely much older than heretofore believed), Graham Hancock, Explorer and Author of Fingerprints of the Gods, and other books that suggest our ancient ancestors were more intelligent than most anthropologists infer, John Anthony West, Rebel Egyptologist who suspects ancient Egypt might have its roots in an earlier culture (possibly Atlantis), Walter Cruttenden, an Archeo-astronomer that suggests the motion of the solar system through space might play a role in the rise and fall of civilization. These are just a few of the provocative scientists, authors and researchers presenting at the 4th annual Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge, an event that is sure to get you thinking.

The legendary city of Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great as he swept through Egypt in his quest to conquer the known world.Now scientists have discovered hidden underwater traces of a city that existed at Alexandria at least seven centuries before Alexander the Great arrived, findings hinted at in Homer's Odyssey and that could shed light on the ancient world. Alexandria was founded in Egypt on the shores of the Mediterranean in 332 B.C. to immortalize Alexander the Great. The city was renowned for its library, once the largest in the world, as well as its lighthouse at the island of Pharos, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Astronomers have spotted a dusty disk in a four-star solar system that could be home to a planet in the making. Using the infrared eyes of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers spotted the swirling disk around a pair of stars in the quadruple-star system HD 98800, located 150 light-years away in the constellation TW Hydrae. If a planet did form in the disk, its sky would be bathed in the light of four suns. One pair of suns would blaze brightly, while the other pair, gravitationally bound to the first pair, would appear as little more than faint pinpoints of light.The finding will be detailed in an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Austrian Assyriologist Michael Jursa recently discovered the financial record of a donation made a Babylonian chief official, Nebo-Sarsekim. The find may lend new credibility to the Book of Jeremiah, which cites Nebo-Sarsekim as a participant in the siege of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. The tablet is dated to 595 B.C., which was during the reign of the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar II. Coming to the throne in 604 B.C., he marched to Egypt shortly thereafter, and initiated an epoch of fighting between the two nations. During the ongoing struggle, Jerusalem was captured in 597, and again in 587-6 B.C. It was at this second siege that Nebo-Sarsekim made his appearance.

A team of U.S.-led anthropologists in northern Peru have discovered the earliest-known evidence of peanut, cotton and squash farming.The evidence of such plantings dating 5,000 to 9,000 years was found on the western slopes of the Andes Mountains in the Nanchoc Valley, about 1,600 feet above sea level. The discovery is said to provide long-sought evidence that some of the early development of agriculture in the New World took place at Andes farming settlements.

Throwing stone balls along a lane might have been a popular game in ancient Egypt, according to evidence unearthed some 56 miles south of Cairo by Italian archaeologists. A mixture of bowling, billiard and bowls, the game was played at Narmoutheos, in the Fayoum region, in a spacious room which appears to be the prototype of a modern-day bowling hall.The room was part of a structure, perhaps a residential building, which dated from the Roman period, specifically between the second and third century A.D."We first discovered a room with a very well-built limestone floor. Then we noticed a lane and two stone balls," Edda Bresciani, an Egyptologist at Pisa University, told Discovery News.

The sanctity of the first moon landing site is threatened by the dawn of a new race to put tourists in space, according to one researcher.Beth O'Leary, a space heritage archaeologist from New Mexico State University, said this includes the imprints of man's first steps on the moon, which were made at Tranquillity Base almost 40 years ago, and remain on its surface.O'Leary, who gave a keynote address at the recent International Council on Monuments and Sites conference in Cairns, Australia, believes the site should be protected under U.S. and U.N. heritage laws.But she says U.S. federal authorities are concerned any move to protect the site would be viewed as an attempt to claim sovereignty over the moon.Yet she succeeded last year in having the state of New Mexico recognize Tranquillity Base as an historic archaeological site.

A major Viking hoard, discovered intact within a gilt silver bowl near Harrogate by metal detectorists in January 2007, has been unveiled by the British Museum.Experts say the remarkable size and quality of the hoard makes it the most important find of its type in Britain since the Cuerdale Hoard was discovered in Lancashire in 1840.The Harrogate Hoard, which was promptly reported by the finders David and Andrew Whelan to their local Finds Liaison Officer (FLO), contains a mixture of different precious metal objects, including coins, complete ornaments, ingots (bars) and chopped-up fragments known as hack-silver.It also reveals a remarkable diversity of cultural contacts in the medieval world, with objects coming from as far apart as Afghanistan in the East and Ireland in the West, as well as Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.

Mobile phones could in future be powered by their owner's beating heart after scientists developed a generator that can produce electricity from vibrations in the surrounding environment.Initially developed for use in industrial machinery, the -scientists are now tweaking the design so it can be used to power pacemakers off a beating heart. It would allow patients to avoid surgery to replace batteries in their pacemaker.However, researchers also hope that they will eventually be able to use the highly-efficient generators to power other portable wireless devices, including mobiles and MP3 players. It would mean that mobile users could charge their phone by simply keeping it in their breast pocket near their heart.

Peru has launched an ambitious drive to regrow millions of hectares (acres) of jungle and forests laid bare by illegal logging, pollution and slash-and-burn farming, officials said Thursday.The immediate goal is to reforest more than 100,000 square kilometers (the size of South Korea) of forest that have been devastated these past 40 years, said National Institute of Natural Resources (Inrena) president Roberto Angeles.

Unicorns, giants and fairies, the UFOs of antiquity, have yet to turn up in any archaeologist's overturned shovel. Aside from their frequent appearances on ancient frescoes, statuary and artwork, such fanciful creatures of mythology don't have a clear origin, although some have linked the mermaid to lonely sailors glimpsing dugongs (also known as sea cows) in the distance, and making a giant leap.But a recent discovery in an Iranian salt mine, suggests one scholar, may shed light on the origins of a famous satyr of antiquity, one so well-known that it merited a visit from the emperor himself. The satyr was a goat-man in Greek legend who danced and frolicked, playing pipes and chasing nymphs all day, living in a woodsy version of the Playboy Mansion.In June, a man's body, naturally mummified within an ancient salt mine, was found in the Chehr-Abad salt mine outside the Iranian city of Zanjan. Six such discoveries have been made since 1993, according to the Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies (CAIS) foundation based in London.

Orinda retiree Ben Kacyra has made the biggest contribution to archeological research since Indiana Jones added the bullwhip to his field kit. Kacyra, who made his fortune as an inventor and civil engineer, has created a foundation to explore the research of a cameralike device that uses lasers to scan three-dimensional objects -- such as archaeological ruins -- to create digital blueprints accurate to within a few millimeters. Born in northern Iraq in 1940, Kacyra developed this laser-mapping tool several years ago to solve a problem in construction -- keeping accurate records of the real dimensions of factories and power plants when they deviate from the architect's plans. The 67-year-old sold his invention in 2001 and now works with his wife, Barbara, to get the $100,000 tool into the hands of archaeological researchers who are using it to create electronic blueprints so accurate that scientists sitting at computer terminals can glean the secrets of ancient monuments remotely. "We both loved the ancient-built environment and we wanted to put high technology to use saving ancient places," Kacyra said.

Archaeologists have unearthed the site where Robert the Bruce was crowned king of Scotland. The location of the abbey at Moot Hill, the original home of the Stone of Destiny, was forgotten centuries ago. But it has now been identified by experts from Glasgow University who have been surveying the grounds of Scone Palace for the first time. They used scanners to detect buried structures and found part of the abbey church and a bell tower. The coronation of Pictish and Scottish kings took place at Moot Hill for hundreds of years, and a royal abbey was built there by 1120AD.

A controversial research project is trying to trace all human language to a common root.Around 50,000 years ago, something happened to our ancestors in Africa. Anatomically modern humans, who had existed for at least 150,000 years prior, suddenly began behaving differently. Until then, their conduct scarcely differed from that of their hominid cousins, the Neanderthals. Both buried their dead; both used stone tools; and as social apes, both had some form of communication, which some think was gestural.But then, "almost overnight, everything changes very rapidly," says Merritt Ruhlen, a lecturer in the Anthropological Sciences Department at Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. Humans began making much better stone tools. They started burying their dead with accouterments that suggested religion. And perhaps most telling, Homo sapiens, the "wise" apes, began creating art."People started having imagination at this time much more than they had earlier," says Dr. Ruhlen.

Ice loss from glaciers and ice caps is expected to cause more global sea rise during this century than the massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study. The researchers found that glaciers and ice caps are currently contributing about 60 percent of the world's ice to the oceans and the rate has been markedly accelerating in the past decade, said Professor Emeritus Mark Meier of CU-Boulder's Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research, lead study author. The contribution is presently about 100 cubic miles of ice annually -- a volume nearly equal to the water in Lake Erie -- and is rising by about three cubic miles per year.In contrast, the CU-Boulder team estimated Greenland is now contributing about 28 percent of the total global sea rise from ice loss and Antarctica is contributing about 12 percent. Greenland is not expected to catch up to glaciers and ice caps in terms of sea-level rise contributions until the end of the century, according to the study.

A new moon has been discovered orbiting Saturn - bringing the planet's latest moon tally up to 60. The body was spotted in a series of images taken by cameras onboard the Cassini spacecraft. Initial calculations suggest the moon is about 2km-wide (1.2 miles) and its orbit sits between those of two other Saturnian moons, Methone and Pallene. The Cassini Imaging Team, who found the object, said Saturn's moon count could rise further still.

Huge dust storms raging on Mars pose the worst threat yet to Nasa's robot rovers, the US space agency has said. Dust is starving the rovers of power by blocking out the sunlight needed to charge their batteries. The six-wheeled, solar-powered rovers - Opportunity and Spirit - are operating at two distant sites just south of the Martian equator. A series of dust storms have dogged the rovers for a month, and could continue for several more days, if not weeks. If the sunlight is further reduced over an extended period, the rovers will not be able to generate enough power to operate or keep themselves warm.

Professors, researchers and students from around the world have been working desperately against the clock as the Vatican Library closes for a three-year renovation period this week.The BBC reports that researchers from more than 50 countries were sitting elbow-to-elbow at desks piled with documents and crowded with laptops and ancient manuscripts.They were working desperately against time to complete their work before the closing down for the next three years of this powerhouse of academic research.The report says that there was an unmistakable sense of controlled hysteria among library staff, scurrying around to retrieve urgently needed books for scholars from the 60km of stacks spread over seven floors, some of them underground.

Poor nations are being sapped of the technology they need to break the poverty trap and catch up with the rest of the world, the UN has said. Its trade and development agency Unctad used its annual report on Least Developed Countries to look at the role of science, technology and innovation. Rather than being luxuries, they are necessities to help economies that are underdeveloped to grow, Unctad argues.Technology could spur poor nations "to break loose from their poverty trap".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown has signalled the possible reintroduction of tougher penalties for cannabis smokers.He revealed that the Government is to launch a second review of its controversial decision to make cannabis possession a largely non-arrestable offence.Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will consider moving the drug from class C back to class B after a new report from the Government's official drug advisers.Cannabis was downgraded from class B in January 2004 by former home secretary David Blunkett, placing it alongside certain prescription tranquillisers and body-building steroids.

A species of mammal that lays eggs and suckles its young in a pouch has been rediscovered in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, nearly 50 years after it was seen for the first and last time. Attenborough's long-beaked echidna - which was named after Sir David Attenborough - was known only from a single museum specimen caught in 1961. Its subsequent disappearance led scientists to believe that it had become extinct.However, a scientific expedition to the remote Cyclops Mountains has found that the endangered creature is still alive and continues to use its long, toothless beak to poke exploratory holes in the ground in its endless search for earthworms.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spine specialist trying to figure out why people so often have bad backs says he has come up with a new theory about when and how early humans evolved the ability to walk upright.The uncannily human-looking backbone of a 21 million-year-old precursor of humans and apes gives the first clue, said Dr. Aaron Filler of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.A major change in the vertebrae that allowed this pre-human to stand upright and carry things also made it easier to crush and strain the spongy discs between each vertebra, Filler, a medical doctor with a doctorate in anthropology proposes.That, in turn, explains why back pain is a leading cause of disability, he said.

Scientists have discovered that the high level of extinction among wild species is making human life more precarious than thought.Humans rely on what scientists call "ecosystem services": fresh water comes from forest-covered mountains, fish from healthy seas and fertile soils depend on insects, microbes and earthworms.Losing wildlife, or biodiversity, means pushing these systems closer to collapse. Now a study published in the journal Nature concludes that the loss of wildlife could have a more serious impact on food production, carbon dioxide levels and clean water supplies than previously believed.advertisementAs the globe warms, bands of habitat defined by temperature and rainfall will shift from the equator toward the poles. Scientists fear that 25 per cent of all species, plant and animal, could succumb to the rapid pace of change by the end of the century.Now scientists from Zurich and Oxford universities have found that the number of species required for a fully functioning ecosystem may have been underestimated. The key finding is that different ecosystem services were affected by different groups of species.

AMMAN, Jordan - Archaeologists called Tuesday for urgent steps to safeguard Petra, the ancient rose-red rock city recently picked as one of the new seven wonders of the world, saying an increase in visitors could damage it unless protective measures were taken. Choosing Petra as a world wonder has made the public even more aware of the need to conserve this unique heritage that we have," said Khairieh Amr, a senior archaeologist with Jordan's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.But Amr warned that Petra and other archaeological sites in the region could suffer because of a "building boom that is taking place" to expand tourist facilities.Fawwaz Khreisheh, head of the Department of Antiquities, which oversees and maintains the country's archaeological sites, said he was "very optimistic" the Cabinet would soon "give the green light" for a bylaw mandating a strategy to safeguard Petra.

Pagans have pledged to perform "rain magic" to wash away a cartoon character painted next to their famous fertility symbol - the Cerne Abbas giant.A doughnut-brandishing Homer Simpson was painted next to the giant on the hill above Cerne Abbas, Dorset, to promote the new Simpsons film. Many believe the ancient chalk outline of the naked, sexually aroused giant to be a symbol of ancient spirituality.Many couples also believe the 180ft carving aids fertility.

THE world's first prosthetic hand with moving fingers - designed by an Edinburgh NHS expert - is now on the market.Users control the bionic hand through their own muscular impulses and it will enable them to perform functions such as turning keys and gripping objects.Inventor David Gow, a prosthetics manager at Edinburgh's Astley Ainslie Hospital, spent years researching, designing and testing his revolutionary project. The technology has been hailed a success by patients who took part in the trial, including US soldiers who lost limbs in Iraq.

A group of Israeli archeologists has condemned the Antiquities Authority for authorizing Islamic trust officials to carry out a dig on Jerusalem's Temple Mount as part of work to repair electrical lines.The work started last week on the northern section of the Temple Mount, with the approval of the Israel Police and the Antiquities Authority, Israeli and Wakf Islamic trust officials said, drawing the wrath of Israeli archeologists who said that the work, being carried out with a tractor and leaving an 80-meter-long, one-meter deep trench, had damaged the holy site. The Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount, which is composed of archeologists and intellectuals from across the political spectrum, has lambasted Israel's chief archeological body for permitting the work.

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. (AP) -- A forest fire has led to a chance discovery of debris from the impact of a meteorite 1.85 billion years ago, more than 450 miles away at Sudbury, Ontario.Geologists had scheduled a field trip in May along the Gunflint Trail in northeastern Minnesota, but most areas they wanted to explore were closed because of a wildfire that charred more than 118 square miles.Geologist Mark Jirsa of the Minnesota Geological Survey went up the trail to scout new locations and, in a spot he had never visited before, stumbled across debris now linked to the Sudbury impact.