Newsdesk Archive

Scottish church which featured in the bestselling novel "The Da Vinci Code" has revealed another mystery hidden in secret code for almost 600 years.A father and son who became fascinated by symbols carved into the chapel's arches say they have deciphered a musical score encrypted in them.Thomas Mitchell, a 75-year-old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker, and his composer and pianist son Stuart, described the piece as "frozen music"."The music has been frozen in time by symbolism," Mitchell said on his Web site www.tjmitchell.com/stuart/rosslyn.html, which details the 27-year project to crack the chapel's code."It was only a matter of time before the symbolism began to thaw out and begin to make sense to scientific and musical perception."

Are psychedelics good for you? It's such a hippie relic of a question that it's almost embarrassing to ask. But a quiet psychedelic renaissance is beginning at the highest levels of American science, including the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Harvard, which is conducting what is thought to be its first research into therapeutic uses of psychedelics (in this case, Ecstasy) since the university fired Timothy Leary in 1963. But should we be prying open the doors of perception again? Wasn't the whole thing a disaster the first time?

Hidden mini-cameras and microphones that can eavesdrop on conversations in the street are the next step in the march towards a "Big Brother" society, MPs were warned yesterday.Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, said a debate had begun about whether listening devices should be set up alongside Britain's 4.5 million CCTV cameras.In evidence to the Commons home affairs committee, Mr Thomas said he would be hostile to such an idea.He was also alarmed by the prospect of tiny cameras, hidden in lamp posts, replacing more obvious monitors.Mr Thomas even considered that so-called ''talking CCTV'', which is to be trialled in 20 areas across the country, might be a ''bridge too far''. This system allows operators to bellow orders at those deemed to be behaving badly.He said it was arguable that surveillance in Britain - which is greater than in any other democratic nation - may already have gone too far. It was crucial, he added, to ''proceed with caution'' to avoid creating a climate suspicion.

One of the active chemicals in cannabis inhibits psychotic symptoms in people with schizophrenia, according to a study which compared it with a leading anti-psychotic drug. Although the finding could lead to new treatments for schizophrenia, scientists think it may also explain why cases of cannabis-induced psychosis are apparently on the rise.Most cannabis research focuses on tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient that produces the high. Recent studies have shown THC makes symptoms of schizophrenia worse and triggers the condition in a small proportion of users.But the new research shows that another chemical, cannabidiol (CBD), has the opposite effect. "One possibility is that there are good guys and bad guys within cannabis," said Markus Leweke, of the University of Cologne. He and his team compared the effects of CBD and a leading anti-psychotic drug, Amisulpride, on 42 patients with schizophrenia. After four weeks the symptoms of both groups had improved, but those treated with CBD suffered fewer side-effects.

Maggots are being used to help successfully treat MRSA patients in record time, according to a new study by the University of Manchester.Researchers used green bottle fly larvae to treat 13 diabetics whose foot ulcers were contaminated with MRSA.They found that all but one were cured within a mean period of three weeks, instead of the usual 28 weeks for conventional treatment.The university has now been awarded a £98,000 grant to carry out more tests.

MOSCOW (AFP) - The head of Russia's space agency Sunday said the US has rebuffed an offer from Moscow to jointly explore the moon, while announcing a separate contract with NASA for nearly one billion dollars for the International Space Station. Roskosmos chief Anatoly Perminov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency that Russia had proposed pooling resources to explore the moon."We were ready to cooperate but for unknown reasons, the United States have said they will undertake this programme themselves," he said.

A new exhibition showing off the archaeological riches of the Gaza Strip has just opened in the Swiss city of Geneva. The exhibition, called "Gaza at the Crossroads of Civilisations", contains more than 500 artefacts dating back more than 5,000 years. They reflect the diverse civilisations which at one time or another all spent time in Gaza. Curators at Geneva's museum of art and history, which organised the exhibition, say Gaza's modern problems have so overshadowed its rich past that most people today are completely unaware that Gaza has any archaeological treasures at all.

A chance discovery by archaeologists has brought to light a mosaic nearly 2,000 years old depicting what may have been a real-life version of the Roman combatant played by Russell Crowe in the film Gladiator.The mosaic was found as Italian researchers carried out work on the spectacular Villa dei Quintili, south of Rome and home to the sports-loving Emperor Commodus.Commodus, portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in the film, was known to enjoy gladiatorial combat and had a small amphitheatre in which fighters would train, near the villa, which Commodus had seized after having its owners executed on a trumped-up charge of treason. It was nearby that the mosaic was found - picturing a gladiator named Montanus holding a trident alongside a referee who appears to be pronouncing him the victor over a prone opponent.In for the kill: The mosaic depicts Montanus, possibly a favourite of the sports-loving Emperor Commodus.

MEXICO CITY, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Mexican archaeologists found remains of two women and a man that can be traced to more than 10,000 years ago in the Mayan area of Tulum, Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute said in a statement on Tuesday.The remains were being examined by laboratories in Britain, the United States and Mexico, all of which had said the remains were people between 10,000 and 14,500 years ago, said Carmen Rojas, an archaeologist quoted in the statement."This makes southeastern Mexico one of the few areas with a proven prehistoric presence in America," said Rojas.

CHICAGO, April 27, 2007 -- A robotic probe designed to draw an underwater three-dimensional map showing the biological and geochemical composition of an ice-bound lake in Antarctica could be the ideal tool to search for life on other planets or moons where ice is known to exist. Peter Doran, associate professor of earth and environmental sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, is the lead investigator in a three-year, $2.3 million dollar study funded by NASA to build the probe that will map Antarctica's West Lake Bonney, a 2 1/2-mile long, one-mile wide, 130 foot-deep lake located in the continent's McMurdo Dry Valleys. Bonney lies perpetually trapped beneath 12 to 15 feet of ice. "Our goal is to build a submersible autonomous underwater vehicle to map in 3-D the geochemistry and biology of this ice-covered lake," said Doran, who is also a principal investigator on the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research project in the McMurdo Dry Valleys.

The rise and fall of species on Earth might be driven in part by the undulating motions of our solar system as it travels through the disk of the Milky Way, scientists say.Two years ago, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley found the marine fossil record shows that biodiversity-the number of different species alive on the planet-increases and decreases on a 62-million-year cycle. At least two of the Earth's great mass extinctions-the Permian extinction 250 million years ago and the Ordovician extinction about 450 million years ago-correspond with peaks of this cycle, which can't be explained by evolutionary theory.

A genetic mutation called the "after-hours gene" may explain why some people are night owls, it is revealed in Science journal today.It could also hold clues for pharmacologists working to develop drugs to help people adjust to shift work or jet lag. There are further implications for the study of causes of some psychiatric disorders.The altered gene, named "after hours" or Afh, is a variant of a gene called Fbxl3, which had not been linked to the body clock that keeps our metabolism, digestion and sleep patterns in tune with the rising and setting of the sun.

Scientists in Dundee have announced plans to create a "robot village" in an effort to learn how different cultures emerge in society.The University of Abertay's four-year study will feature about 60 miniature robots who will be organised into groups and programmed to interact.The project team plans to observe the robots to see how they behave together.

A convincing twin of Darth Vader stalks the beige cubicles of a Silicon Valley office, complete with ominous black mask, cape and light saber.But this is no chintzy Halloween costume. It's a prototype, years in the making, of a toy that incorporates brain wave-reading technology.Behind the mask is a sensor that touches the user's forehead and reads the brain's electrical signals, then sends them to a wireless receiver inside the saber, which lights up when the user is concentrating.The player maintains focus by channeling thoughts on any fixed mental image, or thinking specifically about keeping the light sword on. When the mind wanders, the wand goes dark.

The tactical biorefinery is a portable machine that can convert food waste and inorganic trash into electricity. Purdue University researchers created a unique hybrid design for the U.S. Army. It uses three distinct technologies to perform its magic:A bioreactor that uses enzymes and micro-organisms to turn food waste into ethanolA gasification unit that turns plastics, paper, and other residual waste into methane and low-grade propane andA modified diesel engine that can burn gas, ethanol, and diesel fuel in variable proportions.

Workers digging at the future site of a Wal-Mart store in suburban Mesa have unearthed the bones of a prehistoric camel that's estimated to be about 10,000 years old.Arizona State University geology museum curator Brad Archer hurried out to the site Friday when he got the news that the owner of a nursery was carefully excavating bones found at the bottom of a hole being dug for a new ornamental citrus tree.

CLIMATE change sceptics have seized on news that Mars is heating up to back their claim that humans are not causing Earthly global warming.The research comes from US planetary scientists, who suggest the Red Planet warmed by about 0.65C from the 1970s to the 1990s, similar to Earth's 0.6C average temperature rise during the 20th Century."It could be coincidental or it might be the needle in the haystack," said climatologist William Kininmonth, former head of the National Climate Centre in Melbourne.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan's bee farmers are feeling the sting of lost business and possible crop danger after millions of the honey-making, plant-pollinating insects vanished during volatile weather, media and experts said on Thursday.Over the past two months, farmers in three parts of Taiwan have reported most of their bees gone, the Chinese-language United Daily News reported. Taiwan's TVBS television station said about 10 million bees had vanished in Taiwan.A beekeeper on Taiwan's northeastern coast reported 6 million insects missing "for no reason", and one in the south said 80 of his 200 bee boxes had been emptied, the paper said.

If you were to able to travel back in time 50,000 years, abduct a paleolithic hunter from a river valley in southern France and haul him back to 21st century America, would he stand out in a crowd? Depends on the crowd. He probably wouldn't blend in very well at the New York Stock Exchange. But dress him in shorts and flip-flops, hand him a backpack and he could probably stroll across any college campus in the country without attracting attention.Human beings who lived 500 centuries ago were fully modern, virtually indistinguishable from us in fundamental ways. Their brains and bodies were physically the same as ours. They created sophisticated art - murals, paintings, sculptures - and buried their dead in a fashion that suggests they possessed ceremonial or religious traditions. They had developed the technology and navigational skills required to travel across broad expanses of ocean. Paleolithic hunter-gatherers did not, however, domesticate plants or animals on a large scale. Nor did they live in large, sedentary communities. No one did until about 10,000 years ago when, suddenly and in multiple locations around the globe, agriculture and cities appear in the archaeological record.

SCHAGEN, Netherlands (AP) -- The massive central door in the side of Noah's Ark was thrown open Saturday -- you could say it was the first time in 4,000 years -- drawing a crowd of curious pilgrims and townsfolk to behold the wonder.Of course, it's only a replica of the biblical Ark, built by Dutch creationist Johan Huibers as a testament to his faith in the literal truth of the Bible.Reckoning by the old biblical measurements, Johan's fully functional ark is 150 cubits long, 30 cubits high and 20 cubits wide. That's two-thirds the length of a football field and as high as a three-story house.Life-size models of giraffes, elephants, lions, crocodiles, zebras, bison and other animals greet visitors as they arrive in the main hold."The design is by my wife, Bianca," Huibers said. "She didn't really want me to do this at all, but she said if you're going to anyway, it should look like this."

An earthquake has shaken parts of Kent, damaging buildings and disrupting electricity supplies.Homes in five streets in Folkestone had to be evacuated because of structural damage including cracked walls and fallen chimneys.The magnitude 4.3 tremor struck at 0819 BST and experts said its epicentre was a few miles off the coast in the English Channel.

At first glance, the manuscript appears to be a medieval Christian prayer book. But on the same pages as the prayers, experts using a high-tech imaging system have discovered commentary likely written in the third century A.D. on a work written around 350 B.C. by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The discovery is the third ancient text to emerge from the layers of writing on the much reused pages. In 2002 researchers had uncovered writings by the mathematician Archimedes and the fourth-century B.C. politician Hyperides.

For months, Japanese schoolchildren at a Katsuyama educational facility pretended to be paleontologists with what has turned out to be a very valuable rock.The rock contains fossilized dinosaur skin, according to an announcement made this week by officials at the Fukui Prefectural Dinosaur Museum.The fossil is believed to contain traces of skin that fossilized before it fully decayed within a clear impression. The unusual find is a first for Japan."It is extremely rare for skin to be preserved as fossil because, unlike bones, skin rots," said Yoichi Azuma, assistant director of the museum.

An international team led by the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md., has developed a prototype of the first fully integrated prosthetic arm that can be controlled naturally and provide sensory feedback, and allows for eight degrees of freedom -- a level of control far beyond the current state of the art for prosthetic limbs.Proto 1, developed for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Revolutionizing Prosthetics Program, is a complete limb system that also includes a virtual environment used for patient training, clinical configuration, and to record limb movements and control signals during clinical investigations. The DARPA prosthetics program is an ambitious effort to provide the most advanced medical and rehabilitative technologies for military personnel injured in the line of duty.

The characteristics of the vegetation that inhabited Earth 21 million years ago can be vital to get to know climatic evolution in the last million years and the causes for these changes.A thesis of the University of Granada has analysed samples of the sedimentary bowls of the geographic section from the south of Spain to Turkey to check that 14 million years ago there were glaciations in the south pole that changed the ruling subtropical climate into warm and transformed the characteristic vegetation of this area. A result that can be "vitally important to determine if the present climatic change is due to a natural period or, on the contrary, it is a consequence of the bad management of man", according to the author of the work, Gonzalo Jiménez Moreno.Although the project has been focused on the palynological study of numerous localities of the Miocene, the conclusions obtained suggest that the cooling experienced in the planet 14 million years ago also extended to Upper Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene, with the respective change in the climate and the vegetation.

SCIENTISTS from Edinburgh are working on a project aimed at developing waste-free nuclear power that does not contribute to global warming. Researchers from Heriot-Watt University are among those looking at using carbon composite tiles, similar to those used on the space shuttle, to cover a nuclear fusion reactor and cover that with a lining made of diamond. The inside of the reactor would reach temperatures close to those of the Sun, so the material needs to be able to withstand extreme heat. Professor Phil John who is leading the research said: "The ultimate energy source is the Sun. Confining the fusion power of the Sun on Earth has long been the goal of scientists searching for a benign source of energy.

Researchers have set their sights on bypassing the normal routes of bionics to hook video cameras deep into the brain, allowing the blind to see. The bionic eye system has already proved promising in monkeys.The goal is to one day provide vision for blind people using twin video cameras worn as a pair of glasses that transmit signals wirelessly to an implant in the brain.Decades of studies have tried to develop prostheses that restore sight. One approach generates images by electrically stimulating healthy neurons in the retina, the light-sensitive tissue lining the inner eyeball , and thus mimic the effects of inbound light. The other aims to electrically stimulate cells in the cortex, the outer layer of the brain where visual signals are processed.Both approaches have drawbacks and have achieved limited success. The retina is a very delicate, fragile membrane that is prone to damage. And the complexity within the cortex makes it more difficult to generate intelligible pictures with the second method.

Archaeologists have discovered the place where Aeneas is believed to have first set foot in Italy. It is the closest point on the Italian peninsula to Albania and, until efforts by the coastguard some years ago, was the destination of choice for Albanians fleeing poverty for the glamour and prosperity of their wealthy neighbour. But suddenly, the little town of Castro in the province of Lecce has something much more exciting to shout about. Archaeologists at the University of Lecce have discovered that the modern town, with its 15th-century walls, sits on the ruins of the port that was the first landfall in Italy made by the semi-mythical wanderer of the ancient world, Aeneas. According to Virgil's epic, he fled Troy as the Greeks destroyed it and made his laborious way westwards finally to found a "new Troy", the imperial city of Rome.

Lightning is more than light and noise: It's an intense chemical factory that affects both local air quality and global climate. But how big is the effect? Researchers aren't sure. To answer the question they're developing a new technique to estimate the factory's output. If successful, the method will be applied to the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) that will monitor the Western hemisphere from a next-generation weather satellite slated for launch in 2014."Atmospheric chemists are very interested in trace gases produced by lightning, particularly nitrogen oxides ('NOx' for short)," explains William Koshak, a lightning researcher at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. NOx includes nitric oxide (NO), a toxic air pollutant produced by automobile engines and power plants, and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a poisonous reddish-brown gas with a sharp odor."We know that lightning is the most important source of NOx in the upper troposphere, where our weather takes place," Koshak continues. "NOx indirectly influences our climate because it partly controls the concentration of ozone (O3) and hydroxyl radicals (OH) in the atmosphere. Ozone is an important greenhouse gas, and OH is a highly reactive molecule that controls the oxidation of several greenhouse gases."

A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is wiping out bees across the United States, UC San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.Researchers have been struggling for months to explain the disorder, and the new findings provide the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause.But the results are "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved."

Three new articles now up on the forum:The Hammonasset Line By Glenn Kreisberg, 24 April 2007The Giza Codex: Time of the Gods By Scott Creighton, 19 April 2007The Nephilim: Their Origins and Evolution By Petros Koutoupis, 12 April 2007

Standing on the wind-swept flatlands of southern Vermilion County, you might think you'd have to drive the 180 miles to Chicago's Field Museum to find the nearest fossilized tree trunk from the Pennsylvania Age, 300 million years ago. Nah, just drill straight down.That's where coal miners working south and west of Georgetown have unearthed, chunk by fossilized chunk, what has revealed itself over the past few years to be the remains of a fossilized rain forest.It covers about 15 square miles, all more than 200 feet below ground, and probably is the largest intact rain forest from that period ever studied, according to Scott Elrick of the Illinois State Geological Survey.It's that scale that makes what lies just above the Riola and Vermilion Grove mines significant, he said.

Go to work, come home.Go to work -- and vanish without a trace.Billions of bees have done just that, leaving the crop fields they are supposed to pollinate, and scientists are mystified about why.The phenomenon was first noticed late last year in the United States, where honeybees are used to pollinate $15 billion worth of fruits, nuts and other crops annually. Disappearing bees have also been reported in Europe and Brazil. Commercial beekeepers would set their bees near a crop field as usual and come back in two or three weeks to find the hives bereft of foraging worker bees, with only the queen and the immature insects remaining. Whatever worker bees survived were often too weak to perform their tasks.

Kryptonite is no longer just the stuff of fiction feared by caped superheroes.A new mineral matching its unique chemistry - as described in the film Superman Returns - has been identified in a mine in Serbia.According to movie and comic-book storylines, kryptonite is supposed to sap Superman's powers whenever he is exposed to its large green crystals.The real mineral is white and harmless, says Dr Chris Stanley, a mineralogist at London's Natural History Museum."I'm afraid it's not green and it doesn't glow either - although it will react to ultraviolet light by fluorescing a pinkish-orange," he told BBC News.

No one knows. And that, say some groups, is the problem. The near-ubiquity of wireless networks has led to concerns over an "electronic smog" of radio waves that stretches from the home to Starbucks and the classroom; anywhere, in fact, that a computer can connect to the internet without wires. The rapid spread of the networks has been accompanied by negligible research into the potential risks.Last night, the Professional Association of Teachers wrote to Alan Johnson, the education secretary, requesting a scientific inquiry into the potential health risks of Wi-Fi networks, and recommended that schools stop installing them until research declares them safe. Eight out of 10 secondary schools and half of primary schools have the equipment.Fears over Wi-Fi networks run parallel to those over mobile phones and the masts they speak to. Sir William Stewart's report in 2000 concluded there was no firm evidence to show mobile phone radiation was a health risk, but as a precaution recommended children use them sparingly, because their brains are still developing.

Archaeologists are uncovering a huge prehistoric "lost country" hidden below the North Sea.This lost landscape, where hunter-gatherer communities once lived, was swallowed by rising water levels at the end of the last ice age.University of Birmingham researchers are heralding "stunning" findings as they map the "best-preserved prehistoric landscape in Europe".This large plain disappeared below the water more than 8,000 years ago.The Birmingham researchers have been using oil exploration technology to build a map of the once-inhabited area that now lies below the North Sea - stretching from the east coast of Britain up to the Shetland Islands and across to Scandinavia.

Budapest, April 23 (MTI) - Archaeologists exploring a Neolithic burial site in Tolna County, S Hungary, have discovered what may easily be the most exciting tomb ever unearthed in Europe, Professor Istvan Zalai-Gaal, who has been leading the diggings, reported on Monday.The tomb is seven thousand years old and was the burial chamber of a tribal chieftain.There is a heavy upright log in each corner, believed to have originally held an aboveground structure over the two-metre by two-metre tomb.Inside, said Zalai-Gaal, archaeologists found polished stone axes and other stone tools typical of the late Stone Age, as well as the largest stone knife ever to be recovered from that period.

A giant mystery organism more than 350 million years old has finally been identified as a humongous fungus.The enigma known as Prototaxites, which stood in branchless, tree-like trunks up to more than 20 feet tall and a yard wide, lived worldwide from roughly 420 million to 350 million years ago. The giant was the largest-known organism of its day, living in a time when wingless insects, millipedes, worms and other creepy-crawlies dominated, as backboned animals had not yet evolved out of the oceans."That world was a very strange place," said researcher C. Kevin Boyce, a University of Chicago paleobotanist.

For nearly a century, anthropologists have been debating the relationship of Neandertals to modern humans. Central to the debate is whether Neandertals contributed directly or indirectly to the ancestry of the early modern humans that succeeded them. As this discussion has intensified in the past decades, it has become the central research focus of Erik Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. Trinkaus has examined the earliest modern humans in Europe, including specimens in Romania, Czech Republic and France. Those specimens, in Trinkaus' opinion, have shown obvious Neandertal ancestry. In an article appearing the week of April 23 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Trinkaus has brought together the available data, which shows that early modern humans did exhibit evidence of Neandertal traits.

A drug that offers the first real hope for around ten per cent of patients who suffer the common genetic disorders Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and cystic fibrosis has been unveiled.Beneficial effects are reported in studies on mice and the drug is now being tested on more than 100 patients, with initial data suggesting that it could offer the first treatment for the underlying disease.Perhaps most remarkable of all is that the drug could also help a significant fraction of sufferers of around 2,000 other types of hereditary disease.

A ROCK platform in the heart of the Wollemi wilderness may be the closest thing Australia has to Mount Olympus, the seat of the gods in Greek mythology.Last spring archaeologists discovered an enormous slab of sandstone, 100 metres long and 50 metres wide, in the 500,000-hectare Wollemi National Park. It was covered in ancient art.The gallery depicted an unprecedented collection of powerful ancestral beings from Aboriginal mythology.

Anthropologists in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences are identifying new sites to study archaeology that are fathoms, not feet, under the surface.Anthropology professor Kevin McBride and doctoral candidate David Robinson are scoping out early coastal human settlement sites, now under water, that could reveal clues to how the Americas were settled.McBride says early submerged sites may yield evidence of how the earliest coastal residents lived and how they got here.McBride, who is also director of research at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center, was co-director and Robinson, a professional underwater archaeologist, one of the lead field archaeologists on a research expedition off Galveston, Texas, in March.During the week-long expedition, teams of scientists from several federal agencies and research institutions explored the submerged landscape around the Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary, 115 miles off the Texas-Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

Utah site frozen in Early Jurassic time recently yielded discoveries that include an enormous, previously unknown carnivorous dinosaur, a new shark species, at least three other new fish and three new trees.All of the now-extinct organisms once thrived in or around a giant lake 200 million years ago, according to paleontologists who made the finds.Anatomical features and track marks linked to the dinosaur suggest it specialized in eating and catching fish, including sharks and huge bony fish that, when consumed, would have been "like biting through chain mail," Utah State paleontologist James Kirkland told Discovery News.The fish-loving dino, which the researchers believe was a cousin of the crested dino Dilophosaurus, would have been a formidable adversary to its fearsome prey."These (dinosaurs) got up to 18-20 feet in length, 6-7 feet high at the hips, and weighed between 750-1,000 pounds," explained Andrew Milner, city paleontologist at the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site on Johnson Farm, Utah, where the excavations took place.

The Step Pyramid at Saqqara is under intensive care. Nevine El-Aref reports on a restoration scheme to save Egypt's oldest royal stone complexRight: A panoramic view of the Djoser Pyramid complex; cracks on the walls of the underground tunnels, and a bird-eye view of the Saqqara necropolis

Shields up! UK space scientists are preparing to build the first Star Trek-style deflector to protect astronauts on long missions to Mars. Science-fiction will become reality when the researchers create an artificial force field to guard crews from deadly cosmic rays and other radiation.So far, visitors to the International Space Station have had to hide behind thick protective walls during powerful storms on the sun.But under the British plan, crews on interplanetary missions will switch on a magnetic field that will produce a shield like that around the USS Enterprise.

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, announced plans Tuesday for a lottery which would send its winner into space in a bid to spread the dream of extraterrestrial travel beyond the super-wealthy.Aldrin, who followed U.S. astronaut Neil Armstrong onto the moon in July 1969, said the lottery would be run through his ShareSpace Foundation, which he set up to promote interest in science and space travel in schools.Details of the competition are still sketchy, Aldrin said at a space investment conference on Wall Street Tuesday, with the legal status of selling lottery tickets still to be resolved.

It's "the Sistine Chapel of crystals," says Juan Manuel García- Ruiz.The geologist announced this week that he and a team of researchers have unlocked the mystery of just how the minerals in Mexico's Cueva de los Cristales (Cave of Crystals) achieved their monumental forms.Buried a thousand feet (300 meters) below Naica mountain in the Chihuahuan Desert, the cave was discovered by two miners excavating a new tunnel for the Industrias Peñoles company in 2000.

The BBC is to open up its vast archive of video and audio in an on-demand trial involving more than 20,000 people in the UK.Full-length programmes, as well as scripts and notes, will be available for download from the BBC's website.The pilot is part of the BBC's plans to eventually offer more than a million hours of TV and radio from its archive.

Two years ago, an Englishman named Gordon Rugg slipped back in time. Night after night he spread his papers on the kitchen table once his children had gone to bed. Working on faux parchment with a steel-nibbed calligraphic pen, he scribbled a strange, unidentifiable, vaguely medieval script. Transliterated into the Roman alphabet, some of the words read: "qopchedy qokedydy qokoloky qokeedy qokedy shedy." As he wrote, he struggled to get inside the mind of the person who had first scrawled this incomprehensible text some 400 years ago.By day, Rugg, a 48-year-old psychologist, teaches in the computer science department of Keele University, near Manchester, England. By night, as an intellectual exercise, he has been researching one of the world's great oddities: the Voynich manuscript, a hand-lettered book written in an unknown code that has frustrated cryptographers since its discovery in an Italian villa in 1912. How impregnable is the Voynich? During World War II, US Army code breakers - the guys who blew away Nazi ciphers - grappled with the manuscript in their spare time and came up empty. Since then, decoding the book's contents has become an obsession for geeks and puzzle nuts everywhere.Then came Rugg. In three months, he cooked up the most persuasive explanation yet for the 234-page text: Sorry, folks, there is no code - it's a hoax!

Metals found in lake mud in the central Peruvian Andes have revealed the first evidence for pre-Colonial metalsmithing there.These findings illustrate a way that archaeologists can recreate the past even when looters have destroyed the valuable artifacts that would ordinarily be relied upon to reveal historical secrets. For instance, the new research hints at a tax imposed on local villages by ancient Inca rulers to force a switch from production of copper to silver. Pre-Colonial bronze artifacts have previously been found in the central Peruvian Andes dating back to about 1000 AD, after the fall of the Wari or Huari civilization , the largest empire in the Andes before the Incas . However, it has been unclear how metallurgy had developed there, or whether or not these artifacts even came from the Andes, instead perhaps coming from trading with coastal villages."There's a lot you can't tell about history from the metal artifacts here because there's been a lot of looting, during both modern times and when the Spanish first arrived to melt down what silver and other metals were there to send back to the Spanish crown," said researcher Colin Cooke, an environmental scientist at the University of Alberta in Canada.

British engineers are designing a Moon landing mission that would also test key technologies to take to Mars. The MoonTwins concept would put two probes on the lunar surface - one at each pole - to do science experiments.The work is being undertaken by the aerospace company Astrium at the request of the European Space Agency. Esa plans eventually to go to the Red Planet to retrieve rocks for analysis on Earth, and the Moon is seen as a good place to develop the know-how. "A Mars sample return mission would be very challenging and MoonTwins would help us understand some of the technology elements that would be needed," Mike Healy, director of space science at Astrium, told BBC News.

E-mails are circulating around the world, claiming the UK has banned the teaching of the Holocaust in schools.The false suggestion is the action has been taken by the government to avoid offending some Muslim communities. The source of the rumour may be a report that some history teachers were uncomfortable with sensitive subjects. In fact the government has reaffirmed that in England, teaching children about the Holocaust is compulsory, and it is not banned elsewhere in the UK.

SAN FRANCISCO, California (Reuters) -- More than 1 billion people live in low-lying areas where a sudden surge in sea level could prove as disastrous as the 2004 Asian tsunami, according to new research presented on Thursday.New mapping techniques show how much land would be lost and how many people affected by rapid sea level rises that are often triggered by storms and earthquakes, a U.S. Geological Survey-led team determined.E. Lynn Usery, who led the team, said nearly one-quarter of the world's population lives below 100 feet above sea level -- the size of the biggest surge during the 2004 tsunami that pulverized villages along the Indian Ocean and killed 230,000 people."What we are suggesting is what kind of areas are at risk (in) a catastrophic event," Usery told a meeting of the Association of American Geographers. "The fact that there are that many people living at that sea level means there are probably a lot of people potentially in harm's way."

This expert in oceanography quoted in last week's debunking of the Gore green theory says he was 'seriously misrepresented' It was the television programme that set out to show that most of the world's climate scientists are misleading us when they say humanity is heating up the Earth by emitting carbon dioxide. And The Great Global Warming Swindle, screened by Channel 4 on Thursday night, convinced many viewers that it is indeed untrue that the gas is to blame for global warming. But now the programme - and the channel - is facing a serious challenge to its own credibility after one of the most distinguished scientists that it featured said his views had been "grossly distorted" by the film, and made it clear that he believed human pollution did warm the climate.Professor Carl Wunsch, professor of physical oceanography at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said he had been "completely misrepresented" by the programme, and "totally misled" on its content. He added that he is considering making a formal complaint.A Channel 4 spokesman said: "The film was a polemic that drew together the well-documented views of a number of respected scientists to reach the same conclusions. This is a controversial film but we feel that it is important that all sides of the debate are aired. If one of the contributors has concerns about his contribution we will look into that."

PARIS (AFP) - A tantalising piece of evidence has been added to the puzzle over so-called "hobbit" hominids found in a cave in a remote Indonesian island, whose discovery has ignited one of the fiercest rows in anthropology. Explorers of the human odyssey have been squabbling bitterly since the fossilised skeletons of tiny hominids, dubbed after the diminutive hobbits in J.R.R. Tolkien's tale, were found on the island of Flores in 2003.Measuring just a metre (3.25 feet) tall and with a skull the size of a grapefruit, the diminutive folk lived around 20,000 and 80,000 years ago and appear to have been skillful toolmakers, hunters and butchers.They have been honoured with the monicker Homo floresiensis by their discoverers, who contend the cave-dwellers were a separate species of human that descended from Homo erectus, which is also presumed to be the ancestor of modern man.

A large number of "stone eggs" were recently discovered along with a copper sword at a construction site in Bandeng Hill and Zhanlong Hill, Gongxi Town of Hunan Province. The discoveries were made by highway construction workers while they were digging the foundation for a road. The origin of the stone eggs is currently unknown as it is reported that further analysis by experts will be required to determine what they are and where they came from.

She may not be Helen of Troy, but the face of another ancient beauty has nearly launched a "scientific war" between Germany and Egypt. In an escalating conflict over a famous 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti, the head of Egypt's antiquities authority has threatened to ban exhibitions and tours of Egyptian artifacts from Germany. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, had requested the sculpture for a temporary exhibition. But German officials say the iconic artwork is too fragile to travel. Upping the ante, Hawass on Sunday told his country's parliament that he "will never again organize antiquities exhibitions in Germany if it refuses a request, to be issued next week, to allow the bust of Nefertiti to be displayed in Egypt for three months."

The world's earliest forest may have been filled with slender trees that were three stories tall and capped with branches that resembled bottlebrushes. That's the picture painted by two newfound fossils that are providing unprecedented insight into the appearance and ecology of the first known forest, according to a new study. "What it looks like is a palm tree, or perhaps a tree fern," said the study's lead author, paleobotanist William Stein at Binghamton University in New York."It's a kind of morphology that's instantly recognizable among some modern groups [of trees]," he added.

An 18-metre (55-foot) remnant of the Berlin Wall has disappeared from the centre of the German capital. Erich Stanke, a businessman who bought the section in 1990, said it disappeared suddenly on Friday. The section stood at Potsdamer Platz, where a new environment ministry building is under construction. It was one of the last standing sections of the wall, built by the former communist East Germany. It divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Mr Stanke, who fought in the courts to have the section preserved, was outraged.

Florida team seeks to harness Gulf Stream.Flowing at 1,000 times the rate of the Mississippi River, and attaining velocities in excess of four knots, the mighty ocean current system known as the Gulf Stream has mystified and inspired both sailors and scientists for centuries. Now, a group of Florida researchers is seeking to tap the Gulf Stream for power. Energy use in Florida is anticipated to go up by nearly 30% in the next decade, as more people move to the Sunshine State seeking its temperate climate and sandy beaches. Not surprisingly, the state is heavily reliant on imported energy to meet its growing needs, but researchers at Florida Atlantic University are hoping to change that. The university recently received a research grant of $5 million to examine how the robust ocean currents off of the coasts could be converted into electricity for the state's consumers. "This new industry will provide a clean, reliable, and renewable source of energy that can be used to generate electricity, unlimited hydrogen, and potable water, as well as provide alternative methods for residual cooling or A/C [air conditioning]," says Frank Driscoll, one of the project leaders. The university also expects the new industry to bring 26,500 new jobs to the state.

Tissue studies indicate that nanoparticles, engineered materials about a billionth of a meter in size, could damage DNA and lead to cancer, according to research presented at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research. Nanoparticles are small enough to penetrate cell membranes and defenses, yet they are large enough to cause trouble by interfering with normal cell processes, researchers at the University of Massachusetts say. Such nanoparticles are currently in use in electronics, cosmetics, and chemical manufacturing, among others industries. Because of their extremely small size, they can be difficult to isolate from the larger environment, as they are much too small for removal by conventional filtering techniques. When nanoparticles find their way into cancer cells, they can wreak havoc, according to Sara Pacheco, an undergraduate researcher at the University of Massachusetts. Yet very little is known about how they behave in the environment or how they interact with and affect humans.

A comparison of human and chimpanzee genes has revealed a startling possibility: chimps may have evolved more than humans in the 6 or 7 million years since both diverged from a common ancestor. A study comparing human and chimp genes that appear to have evolved since we parted ways shows that humans have about 154 such genes and our nearest primate relative a whopping 233.This implies that chimps have undergone more evolutionary changes than humans over the same period of time. It also underscores a common misunderstanding that if an animal is "more evolved" it must be smarter or superior to others in some way. "This just shows us that we're ordinary animals," said Jianzhi Zhang, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Michigan. Zhang and his colleagues published their study in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Early results from a Nasa mission designed to test two key predictions of Albert Einstein show the great man was right about at least one of them. It will take another eight months to determine whether he got the other correct say scientists analysing data from Nasa's Gravity Probe B satellite. The spacecraft was launched into orbit from California, US, on 20 April 2004. The mission's chief scientist presented details at a physics meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. Gravity Probe B uses four ultra-precise gyroscopes to measure two effects of Einstein's general relativity theory.

Gardeners are being encouraged to record sightings of bumblebees as part of a national drive to boost numbers.Campaigners from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust hope the survey will enable them to map the distribution of the insects across the country.Bumblebees are disappearing at such an alarming rate in Britain that scientists have warned that they could be wiped out within a few years. Of the 25 species native to Britain, three are now extinct and another nine are endangered.

PHILADELPHIA - A pair of 4,600-year-old skulls from Iraq will be given a CT scan that promises to reveal the faces of two of the dozens of sacrificial victims found decades ago in the remains of an ancient Sumerian city.The procedure will be done Sunday at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania on the skulls of a young woman adorned with gold ornaments and a man wearing a copper helmet, both found in the southern Iraq city of Ur in the 1920s and 1930s.Archaeologists from the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology excavating the Royal Tombs of Ur found a "Great Death Pit" with the bodies of 74 sacrificial victims. Smaller tombs contained other bodies, believed to be those of royal retainers.

In the late thirteenth century, drought ravaged the American Southwest, withering the corn, squash, and beans upon which ancient inhabitants relied for survival. Across the region people abandoned their homes in a desperate search for arable land. Some were lucky enough to find a moist Arizona valley where they built a settlement now known as Grasshopper Pueblo. At its peak, the pueblo consisted of 500 rooms housing hundreds of families. Archaeologists were puzzled by the differing architecture, pottery styles, and burial traditions within the pueblo, leading them to speculate that the drought must have been so severe that people from several different cultures were forced to live together in one of the few places where food would still grow. While the pottery strongly hinted at the disparate origins of the population, there was no way to test that idea.Most rocks carry a small amount of the element strontium (Sr). All elements have different forms, or isotopes, and the ratio of 87strontium and 86strontium isotopes varies according to local geology. Generally, older rocks have accumulated higher amounts of 87Sr in relation to 86Sr. Humans and other animals absorb strontium through the water and plant foods they consume, creating a chemical signature of the local geology within their bodies.What makes strontium isotope analysis especially interesting for archaeologists is that the parts of the human body where the isotopes collect--tooth enamel and bone--are formed at different stages of a person's life. Tooth enamel forms in a child's first few years and does not change as a person ages, so the strontium isotope ratio of enamel matches the geology in the area where a person spent his or her childhood. By contrast, the strontium in bone gradually changes over a seven- to ten-year period and reveals the region where people spend the last decade of their lives. By matching the strontium isotope ratios in bones and teeth to those in specific geographic regions, Price is able to tell whether a person migrated between childhood and death, and sometimes can even pinpoint where the person was born.

Researchers in the US are developing a single-pixel camera to capture high-quality images without the expense of traditional digital photography. Being developed by a lab at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the single-pixel camera is designed to tackle what its developers see as the "inefficiencies" of modern digital camera.It currently resembles an old-fashioned pinhole camera and is the size of a suitcase, but assistant professor of electrical engineering Kevin Kelly told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that it is only "the beginning of things."

Under his name in the Oxford English Dictionary is the simple definition: genius. Yet for decades physicists have been asking the question: did Albert Einstein get it wrong? After half a century, seven cancellations and $700m, a mission to test his theory about the universe has finally confirmed that the man was a mastermind - or at least half proved it.The early results from Gravity Probe B, one of Nasa's most complicated satellites, confirmed yesterday 'to a precision of better than 1 per cent' the assertion Einstein made 90 years ago - that an object such as the Earth does indeed distort the fabric of space and time.

People living near a pagan statue that draws thousands of tourists every year to Northern Ireland's lakelands are threatening a campaign of civil disobedience amid concerns it could be moved to Belfast.The Janus, which has stood in the Caldragh graveyard on Boa Island in Co Fermanagh since it was put up by the Celts more than 2,000 years ago, inspired the Nobel prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney to write the poem, 'January God'. Locals hold the 2ft tall figure, depicting a man on one side and a female on the other, in awe.But now rumours are circling that the statue may be moved to the Ulster Museum for its own protection. Opponents say it would be like moving Stonehenge to London.

Government attempts to persuade thousands of young people to stay away from drugs have failed and done nothing to curb the soaring popularity of illegal substances, a devastating report will warn this week.The number of young people using cocaine and cannabis has increased rapidly over the past 20 years despite high-profile campaigns, such as the £9m 'Frank' initiative aimed at 11 to 15-year-olds, according to an in-depth examination of official efforts to tackle Britain's chronic drug problem. It is also expected to claim that Britain's 'unusually severe drug problem compared with that of our European neighbours' is linked to social and economic deprivation, that punitive laws have had little effect and that police efforts to disrupt the drugs trade have also failed.

It seems like the plot of a particularly far-fetched horror film. But some scientists suggest that our love of the mobile phone could cause massive food shortages, as the world's harvests fail.They are putting forward the theory that radiation given off by mobile phones and other hi-tech gadgets is a possible answer to one of the more bizarre mysteries ever to happen in the natural world - the abrupt disappearance of the bees that pollinate crops. Late last week, some bee-keepers claimed that the phenomenon - which started in the US, then spread to continental Europe - was beginning to hit Britain as well.The theory is that radiation from mobile phones interferes with bees' navigation systems, preventing the famously homeloving species from finding their way back to their hives. Improbable as it may seem, there is now evidence to back this up.

The first primate to get rocketed into space and to be cloned, the rhesus monkey, has now had its genome sequenced, promising to improve research into health and yield insights into human evolution.Analysis of the monkey's DNA sequence has also deepened a few mysteries in our understanding of the biology of primates when it comes to vital parts of our biology, such as the X chromosome.Rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) are sandy-furred, pink-faced monkeys that live in the region ranging from Afghanistan to northern India, as well as southern China, and are traditionally held as sacred in Hinduism.

Twenty minutes' lying in the sun this weekend could provide your best chance of avoiding colds and flu, according to new research which demonstrates that vitamin D, not vitamin C, provides the most efficient protection against cold viruses.The exceptional spring weather, which is forecast to continue into next week with a high of 24C today, will offer the best opportunity so far this year to top up D-levels that have become depleted over the winter, scientists say.Vitamin D is created by the action of sunlight on the skin and levels in all UK residents are at their lowest at this time of year, after the long winter. Short days and cloudy skies mean 60 per cent of the British population are deficient by the start of spring.The malign consequences have been revealed by in a study from the United States which shows that boosting vitamin D may be the most effective way of warding off infections that cause winter colds.The authors, from Winthrop University Hospital, Mineola, New York, who publish their findings in the journal Epidemiology and Infection, say vitamin D stimulates "innate immunity" by activating peptides in the body that attack bacteria, fungi and viruses.

Tai chi is already known as a good low-impact exercise for older people. Now a recent study suggests it offers benefits beyond improving fitness and balance: It may help prevent shingles, a painful skin condition.Researchers found older people who performed the slow, graceful movements of tai chi had a better immune response against the virus that causes shingles than those who only got health education, according to the most rigorous test to date.

By 2050, snowmobiling could be history in Eastern Canada, a quaint winter pastime from the days of yore. It will be just too warm to have reliable snow.People who like skiing in Banff on real snow better get on the slopes now and enjoy it while they can. The ski season could become truncated, perhaps by as much as 14 weeks a year at higher elevations.And consumers with a soft spot for California wine would also be advised to sip favourites now: the state could become too hot to support current crop yields.

Scientists have grown human sperm cells from bone marrow, it emerged last night.They say this may lead to groundbreaking treatment for thousands of men, including cancer patients left sterile by chemotherapy.But the technique provoked an ethical storm and could soon be jettisoned by the Government over concerns about the safety of using artificial sperm.Critics said the treatment threatened to breach moral boundaries as it would effectively lead to men being made redundant.

Scientists have discovered the first clear genetic link to obesity that is carried by significant numbers of people, according to a study yesterday. One copy of the gene leads to a 1.2kg (2.6lb) weight increase while those with two copies are on average 3kg heavier. The scientists say it will open up new avenues of research into who is susceptible to obesity and how best to prevent the condition that is the second largest cause of death in the UK.

A 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault proves that Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia, says a new book which details the secret discovery of Australia.The book "Beyond Capricorn" says the map, which accurately marks geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonca lead a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 -- almost 250 years before Britain's Captain James Cook.Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small map he could recognize all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in Sydney -- the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.

Human error triggered a cascade of events that caused the battery to fail on the Mars Global Surveyor last year, according to a preliminary report released Friday.An internal NASA board determined that power loss likely doomed the spacecraft after a decade of meticulously mapping the Red Planet.But the problems actually began in 2005 when a routine technical update to onboard computers caused inconsistencies in the spacecraft's memory. The board concluded that engineers didn't catch the mistakes because the existing procedures to do so were inadequate.Scientists lost contact last November with the $154 million Global Surveyor. Launched in 1996, it was the oldest of six different active probes on the Martian surface or circling the planet. Several attempts to locate the spacecraft were unsuccessful, and the mission was declared ended in January.

Humans may have trekked up a mountain 35,000 years ago in what is now Tochigi Prefecture to dig up raw obsidian ore to process into stone tools, archaeologists say. Trapezoid stone tools unearthed on Mount Takaharayama in the prefecture will shed light on early human history in Japan, they added. The tools indicate human beings at the start of the Upper Paleolithic Era (roughly 35,000 years ago) were already "mining" raw stones to produce tools, not just picking them up off the ground, the researchers said. Previous finds had led experts to believe such mining started in the more recent Jomon Period, from 13,000 years to 3,000 years ago. Archaeologists Takashi Tamura, 56, and Sadakatsu Kunitake, 31, first found the stone tools in 2005 on the 1,795-meter mountain straddling Yaita and other municipalities.

New measurements indicate that the effects of global warming are much worse than previously suspected and could lead to a complete melting of Arctic summer ice in as little as 13 years, a leading climate scientist says.The finding follows a U.N. report that accelerated warming would have catastrophic implications for humans and wildlife, leading to food and water shortages across the planet.The sea ice data were salvaged from a British Royal Navy submarine, the HMS Tireless, which was conducting exercises under the Arctic last month until an onboard explosion.

Protein resembling that found in chicken has been extracted from a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex bone, providing further evidence of the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.The collagen tissue was removed from a fossilised thigh bone belonging to one of the giant predator dinosaurs. Analysis showed it was structurally similar to chicken protein.The bone was unearthed in 2003 in the American state of Montana. Two years later, the find hit the headlines with the discovery that it seemed to contain soft tissues, including blood vessels.

Bus drivers have nicknamed a white cat Macavity after it has started using the No 331 several mornings a week.The feline, which has a purple collar, gets onto the busy Walsall to Wolverhampton bus at the same stop most mornings - he then jumps off at the next stop 400m down the road, near a fish and chip shop.Driver Bill Khunkhun, 49, who first saw the cat jumping from the bus in January, said: "It is really odd, the first time I saw the cat jumping off the bus with a group of passengers. I hadn't seen it get on which was a bit confusing.

Countries such as Iran, Syria and North Korea have been "emboldened" by failures in the British and US-led War on Terror, a report warns.A study by think-tank the Oxford Research Group also raises fears that the UK's decision to replace Trident could "substantially encourage" other states to develop nuclear weapons.The damning critique of Western foreign policy comes amid growing concern over Iran's apparent willingness to confront the international community.The authors say support for political Islam is increasing worldwide, and action such as the war in Iraq has actually boosted the risk of further terrorist atrocities on the scale of 9/11.

Astronomers have detected water in the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system for the first time.The finding, to be detailed in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal, confirms previous theories that say water vapor should be present in the atmospheres of nearly all the known extrasolar planets. Even hot Jupiters, gaseous planets that orbit closer to their stars than Mercury to our Sun, are thought to have water.The discovery, announced today, means one of the most crucial elements for life as we know it can exist around planets orbiting other stars.

Our land may be green and pleasant but a Nasa team predicts today that foliage on an alien world could be a spectrum of different colours, from yellow to orange or even crimson.Yellow, orange or even red-dominant plants may grow on planets orbiting stars other than our Sun, according to scientists who believe they have found a way to predict the colour of vegetable life on planets in other solar systems to aid efforts to search for extraterrestrial life.In two papers in the journal Astrobiology they studied light absorbed and reflected by organisms on Earth, and determined that if astronomers were to look at the light given off by planets circling distant stars, they might predict that some planets have mostly non-green plants.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Ancient Mexicans brought human sacrifice victims from hundreds of miles (km) away over centuries to sanctify a pyramid in the oldest city in North America, an archeologist said on Wednesday. DNA tests on the skeletons of more than 50 victims discovered in 2004 in the Pyramid of the Moon at the Teotihuacan ruins revealed they were from far away Mayan, Pacific or Atlantic coastal cultures.The bodies, many of which were decapitated, dated from between 50 AD and 500 AD and were killed at different times to dedicate new stages of construction of the pyramid just north of Mexico City.

Diabetics appear to have been cured with a one-off treatment that rebuilds their immune system, according to a new study.The technique, which uses patients' own bone marrow cells, has freed 14 of 15 patients with type 1 diabetes from their dependence on insulin medication. So far, participants in the trial have gone 18 months without insulin therapy following the procedure, on average. One patient has lasted three years without needing such injections.In patients with type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in early childhood or adolescence, the immune system appears to erroneously attack cells in the pancreas that produce the hormone insulin. Without insulin, blood sugar levels in the body spiral out of control. People with diabetes receive insulin therapy, often in the form of self-injected shots, to keep their blood sugar levels under control.

WASHINGTON: The rumor swept through the aisles of the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York as art dealers traded gossip with collectors: Dina Powell was going to China.Normally a routine overseas trip by a government figure - Powell is an assistant secretary of state - would hardly warrant attention from experts on Song dynasty ceramics or Buddhist statuary. But in their minds, this time their very livelihoods were at stake. The fear was that Powell, who heads the State Department's bureau of educational and cultural affairs, was going to Beijing to announce a sweeping ban on the import of Chinese art and artifacts predating 1911. The Chinese requested the ban in 2004, arguing that American demand for such objects was spurring the looting of valuable archaeological sites in China.As it turned out, the rumor was false: The State Department says that Powell is not planning a June visit, although it refuses to say when or how the United States will rule on the Chinese request. But the panic sowed by the gossip, in the midst of New York's annual Asia Week sales last month, suggests the high stakes riding on the American decision.

MEXICO CITY, April 10 (Xinhua) -- Mexican archaeologists found remains of two women and a man that can be traced to more than 10,000 years ago in the Mayan area of Tulum, Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute said in a statement on Tuesday. The remains were being examined by laboratories in Britain, the United States and Mexico, all of which had said the remains were people between 10,000 and 14,500 years ago, said Carmen Rojas, an archaeologist quoted in the statement. "This makes southeastern Mexico one of the few areas with a proven prehistoric presence in America," said Rojas. The remains were found in the Las Palmas, El Templo and Naharoncaves, in an area previously thought to be uninhabited. They are not Mayas because they do not have the classic Mayan skull deformation.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia is working on a space transport system that could eventually lead to the industrialization of the moon, a space expert said. Thirty-eight years after the United States put the first man on the moon, Russia could reach it using Soyuz rockets, the head of the Russian space company RKK Energia, Nikolai Sevastianov, told the Vedomosti daily."It is time to think about industrial development of the moon. We are sometimes criticized for making such suggestions too early," Sevastianov was quoted as saying in an interview released on Wednesday."But it is time to do this given the limits to natural reserves on Earth and the pace of civilization's progress. Nor can we dismiss the idea of outsourcing harmful industries into space."

CAIRO -- The powerful head of Egypt's antiquities department Tuesday ruled out any onsite tests to check the veracity of a new French theory about the building of the Great Pyramid. "It makes sense, but not great sense," Zahi Hawass said. "Everybody can have a theory, you have 300 people and 99 percent of them are non-specialists, I cannot let them all go onto the site." French architect Jean Pierre Houdin put forward a theory on the construction of the Great Pyramid in March, suggesting that it had been built using an internal spiral ramp, rather than an external ramp as had long been suggested.Using 3-D technology from Dassault Systems, the architect built a model of the 4,500-year-old structure with the internal tunnel and he has said that he wants to test the veracity of his theory on site.

TINTAGEL, England (AP) -- Storms and gusting winds have chiseled away at this corner of southwestern England for centuries, but the legends that inhabit the area still loom large.The rocky headland near the village of Tintagel has become so entwined with the legend of King Arthur that its true history seems almost incidental, despite a collection of rough stone foundations and listing walls that hint at its rich past.According to various poems, stories and popular myths, it was here, at the fortress of a Cornish duke, that King Arthur was conceived. Later versions of the story say Arthur was born at the site and may have lived here for a time.There's no question a medieval castle was built at Tintagel by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, a younger brother of King Henry III. Tantalizing remnants of that structure -- crumbling stone barriers and doorways -- are still visible.

The darkness and terror on the night the Titanic sank are described in a letter, released yesterday, written by survivor Laura Mabel Francatelli shortly after the disaster.The letter, along with her official affidavit during a subsequent legal inquiry and her life preserver, will be sold at a Christie's auction on May 16. The life preserver was signed by men and women aboard the lifeboat.Francatelli's nephew inherited the objects in 1967 upon her death. They have been with the family ever since.

ARCHEOLOGISTS recently discovered what appears to be the other half of Stonehenge, illuminating what they believe is a much larger Neolithic complex than has long been envisioned. What is coming to the surface seems strangely familiar. Looking closely at Stonehenge and other Neolithic sites, we find the formative patterns of our modern world. Step out of your house and you might notice your street is fixed on a cardinal grid: north, south, east, west. This pattern defines many American and European cities, as well as Neolithic sites such as Anyang in China and the Mexican city of Teotihuacan. The new discovery, two miles from Stonehenge itself, is an elaborate residential compound now being excavated. It is a site where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived and where pilgrims may have stayed while attending feasts and ceremonies. Fascinating tidbits have been unearthed: a timber version of Stonehenge, evidence of different kinds of occupations in the 4,600-year-old village and a processional "road" leading to the nearby Avon River. These finds add to the picture of an enigmatic Neolithic religion, in which stone-paved roads are aligned with celestial features and great circles frame the rising and setting sun at key times of the year.

Earth's magnetic field was at least half as strong 3.2 billion years ago as it is today, researchers report.That means the planet was pretty well protected way back then from solar output that could otherwise have stripped away the atmosphere and doused early living organisms with lethal radiation."The intensity of the ancient magnetic field was very similar to today's intensity," said geophysicist John Tarduno of the University of Rochester. "It's interesting because it could mean the Earth already had a solid iron inner core 3.2 billion years ago, which is at the very limit of what theoretical models of the Earth's formation could predict."

Throngs of tourists crowd daily into the priceless tombs in the Valley of the Kings, brushing against walls and, even, tracing reliefs with sweaty fingers photos Matjaz KacicnikWhen first unearthed early in the 19th century, the royal tombs on the Theban necropolis, although stripped of their spectacular funerary contents, were nevertheless found in a remarkable state of preservation. The splendid painted reliefs retained colours as bright as on the day they were painted. However, plunder, desecration, exploration, environmental pollution and tourism have since taken their toll, and although successive efforts have been made to protect the tombs in the Valley of the Kings the prospects are grim. The marvellous decorations are decaying more rapidly than they can be restored.Read more of this Al-Ahram article ...

Forget dressing for success: Clothing ornaments thought to confer supernatural power were all the rage among chiefs and other important people in England 4,000 years ago, say scholars.A recent find indicates some of these fashion trends might have originally been designed by Stonehenge leaders.While working two months ago in South Lowestoft, Suffolk, British archaeologist Clare Good excavated a four-sided object made of the mineral jet. It closely matches a geometrically designed gold object found far away at a burial site called Bush Barrow near Stonehenge in Wiltshire.The match is so close that experts believe the black artifact is a skeuomorph, or a copy in a different material.

A deep scar under the North Sea thought to be the UK's only impact crater is no such thing, claims a leading geologist. Professor John Underhill, from the University of Edinburgh, says the Silverpit structure, as it is known, has a far more mundane explanation. Detailed surveys reveal nine similar vast chasms in the area, he says. This suggests it was part of a more widespread process, probably the movement of salt rocks at depth, not a one-off meteorite impact, he believes.

British scientists have grown part of a human heart from stem cells for the first time.Heart surgeon Sir Magdi Yacoub, who led the team, said doctors could be using artificially grown heart components in transplants within three years.His researchers at Harefield hospital managed to grow tissue that works in the same way as human heart valves.Sir Magdi told the Guardian newspaper a whole heart could be produced from stem cells within 10 years.