Newsdesk Archive

Next week, an international panel of top climate scientists, including Americans, will issue a long-awaited report on climate change. The long-awaited report to be published next week puts hard scientific fact behind the cliché images of global warming. A final draft, obtained by CBS News, contains the strongest language yet on how fast the world is heating up and who to blame. The answer? Us.The study traces global temperatures and so-called greenhouse gases going back thousands of years. It shows a gradual variation until the Industrial Revolution begins, when fossil fuel use skyrockets, as do temperatures, CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips reports.Read more of this CBS News article ....

A fleet of exploding probes could prepare the way for warding off hazardous asteroids. Several of the small spherical robots would land on a single asteroid, some exploding while others listen for vibrations that could reveal the object's inner structure.NASA has a list of more than 800 asteroids considered to be potentially hazardous because their orbits carry them close to Earth's. If one of them is found to be on a collision course, knowing its physical properties will be crucial in devising a mission to divert it.If the asteroid is a single chunk of rock, an engine could be attached to the surface to pull or push it off its catastrophic course. But that will not work if the asteroid is merely a collection of smaller rocks loosely bound together by gravity, like the one visited by Japan's Hayabusa spacecraft.

An international team of scientists is developing what they say will be the world's first microrobot -- as wide as two human hairs -- that can swim through the arteries and digestive system.The scientists are designing the 250-micron device to transmit images and deliver microscopic payloads to parts of the body outside the reach of existing catheter technology.It will also perform minimally invasive microsurgeries, said James Friend of the Micro/Nanophysics Research Laboratory at Australia's Monash University, who leads the team. The researchers hope the device will reduce the risks normally associated with delicate surgical procedures.While others have tried and failed to create microrobots for arterial travel, Friend believes his team will succeed because they are the first to exploit piezoelectric materials -- crystals that create an electric charge when mechanically stressed -- in their micromotor design.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Mining heat stored in rocks in the Earth's crust could meet a growing portion of U.S. electricity demand, replacing aging nuclear and coal plants with an environmentally friendly alternative, researchers say.A Massachusetts Institute of Technology study said the mining of thermal energy could be done on a far larger scale than conventionally known, reducing spiraling oil import bills and strengthening U.S. energy security."This is a big resource that is perhaps undervalued by people who are thinking of options for the country," said Jefferson Tester, an MIT chemical engineering professor who led the 15-month study released on Monday."We're running out of time here with our existing fleet of nuclear reactors and all the coal-fired plants that we have that are exceeding emission guidelines," he added.

The first flying dinosaurs took to the air in a similar way to a World War I bi-plane, a study shows. A fresh analysis of an early feathered fossil dinosaur suggests that it dropped its hind legs below its body, adopting a bi-plane-like form. This contrasts with earlier reconstructions showing the dinosaur maintaining its wings in a tandem pattern, a bit like a dragonfly. Details appear in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.

A prehistoric treasure trove spanning more than 100,000 years of Norfolk's past has been unearthed.Travel just millimetres down through the layers of chocolate brown and olive green earth at the site outside Saham Toney, near Watton, and you are crossing millennia.Digger driver Ralph Fickling made the first discovery last October - a leg bone the size of a small tree trunk protruding from a shelf of black gravel.In the following months, with the help of Norfolk Museums and Archaeology Service (NMAS), three mammoths' teeth and a collection of bones were uncovered at the bottom of the half-dug lake.NMAS's curator of geology, Nigel Larkin, realised the significance of the find and gathered a collection of experts from the British Museum, Natural History Museum, Queen Mary University of London and Norwich's Castle Museum, who have spent this week delving into its muddy secrets.

A Swiss:led team of archaeologists has discovered pieces of the oldest African pottery in central Mali, dating back to at least 9,400BC.The sensational find by Geneva University's Eric Huysecom and his international research team, at Ounjougou near the Unesco:listed Bandiagara cliffs, reveals important information about man's interaction with nature.The age of the sediment in which they were found suggests that the six ceramic fragments : discovered between 2002 and 2005 : are at least 11,400 years old. Most ancient ceramics from the Middle East and the central and eastern Sahara regions are 10,000 and between 9:10,000 years old, respectively."At the beginning, the very first piece we found stayed in my desk drawer for years, as I didn't realise how old it was," Huysecom told swissinfo.

Almost half of Britons are suffering from a food intolerance, according to a new report. An estimated 45 per cent of people develop digestive problems, migraines and skin complaints because of food they eat. Yet the NHS is not providing the help and advice they need, say campaigners. They are now calling for better training for GPs, practice nurses and dieticians to tackle the problem. 'Around 20 million people are suffering from symptoms that impact on their daily lives and yet they are not able to get help from the NHS,' said Muriel Simmons, chief executive of Allergy UK. As a result, she warned, they end up being driven into the hands of alternative practitioners who may have no clinical qualifications.

Hidden deep in a Russian forest, and guarded by soldiers with orders to shoot intruders on sight, the medical research laboratories on the outskirts of Moscow were one of the Soviet Union's best-kept secrets. So the carefully-vetted journalists who were allowed past the forbidding perimeter fence on a cold February morning in 1954 were both apprehensive and curious about what lay ahead. Led to a courtyard outside an austere brick building, they waited in the bright winter sunshine to find out why they had been summoned. For a few minutes, only the sound of birdsong and the rustling of leaves filled the air but then a door slowly opened to reveal experimental surgeon Vladimir Demikhov - accompanied by the strangest looking animal they had ever seen. Blinking unhappily in the daylight as Demikhov paraded it on its lead, this unfortunate beast had been created by grafting the head and upper body of a small puppy on to the head and body of a fully-grown mastiff, to form one grotesque creature with two heads.Read more of this Daily Mail article ...

If aliens tens of light-years away have radar and FM radio, we may finally be able to hear them.Scientists say piggybacking detection software onto new radio telescopes designed primarily to observe the early universe could allow astronomers to eavesdrop on everyday sounds from distant, Earth-like civilisations."The key is to really identify something that looks suspicious and follow up on it," says Avi Loeb, a professor of astronomy at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.Loeb collaborated on the idea with colleague and astrophysicist Professor Matias Zaldarriaga.Until now, searches for extraterrestrial life have relied on conventional observatories, which were built to pick up high-frequency radio waves.

Climate change index, with greater changes in darker shadesThink back to the hottest summer you can remember. Now imagine a summer like that every year. For those of us who are still around by the end of the 21st century, this is what we can expect, according to a new index that maps the different ways that climate change will hit different parts of the world. The map reveals how much more frequent extreme climate events, such as heatwaves and floods, will be by 2100 compared with the late 20th century. It is the first to show how global warming will combine with natural variations in the climate to affect our planet.The results are presented on a global map (see top image), in which the areas experiencing the greatest changes are shown in the darkest shades. Swathes of the tropics and high latitudes are coloured a foreboding brown, signifying the most marked changes.Read more of this 'New Scientist Environment' article ...

The Upper Egyptian city of Luxor caught this week's headlines as President Hosni Mubarak, Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and a score of ministers embarked on a tour last Sunday to inspect the most recent development projects undertaken there, as well as inaugurating a number of historical, cultural, archaeological and tourist sites, as well as service zones for Luxor residents and tourists.The tour was within the context of President Mubarak's programme to improve services for Egyptians, as well as develop and promote tourist projects which will in turn provide more job opportunities and upgrade local incomes.President Mubarak, known to have an interest in archaeology and culture, stopped in Luxor, the first stop of his official tour of Egyptian governorates and towns. Home to a third of Egypt's monuments, Luxor is the country's most important tourist destination.

New Horizons will take hundreds of pictures of JupiterThe New Horizons probe is bearing down on Jupiter and a flyby that will swing the spacecraft out to Pluto.The US mission was already the fastest ever launched, but the extra kick from the gas-giant's gravity will ensure it arrives at the dwarf planet by 2015. So far, New Horizons has taken more than 20 images of Jupiter; hundreds more will have been obtained by the end of a late February flyby. The encounter will be an important examination of the probe's systems.

A Roman copper-alloy figurine of a hound, found by Alan Rowe as he used a metal detector on the Isle of Wight, is displayed at the British Museum in London. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/APA missing gold finial from the Sedgeford torc, excavated almost in its entirety more than 40 years ago, and a stash of Viking silver bracelets that may have helped finance an attack on Dublin were among a glittering hoard of treasure disclosed yesterday, the discovery of amateurs and their metal detectors.The culture minister, David Lammy, yesterday called metal detectorists "the unsung heroes of the UK's heritage", a phrase that will cause a sharp intake of breath among some archaeologists who still regard them as little better than legalised looters.

On the shores of Lake Bafa in southwest Turkey, prehistoric rock paintings found on Mt. Latmos in the Five Fingers Mountains have been classified as unique anthropological works because of their use of language and social themes. Archaeologist Annelise Peschlow has been conducting a survey of the area, the ancient city of Miletusare, since 1974 as part of the Latmos Project to find early traces of human settlements in the area. The city's evolution extended from prehistoric times to the Ottoman era. She found the first rock paintings in 1994.According to her, the rock paintings found on Mt. Latmos were a significant discovery because they provided unique insight into the prehistoric culture of Anatolia.

It has once again become fashionable for the dwindling supporters of President Bush's futile war in Iraq to stress the danger of "Islamo-fascism" and the supposed drive by followers of Osama bin Laden to establish a monolithic, Taliban-like regime - a "Caliphate" - stretching from Gibraltar to Indonesia. The President himself has employed this term on occasion over the years, using it to describe efforts by Muslim extremists to create "a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom." While there may indeed be hundreds, even thousands, of disturbed and suicidal individuals who share this delusional vision, the world actually faces a far more substantial and universal threat, which might be dubbed: Energo-fascism, or the militarization of the global struggle over ever-diminishing supplies of energy.

Climate change stands alongside the use of nuclear weapons as one of the greatest threats posed to the future of the world, the Cambridge cosmologist Stephen Hawking has said.Professor Hawking said that we stand on the precipice of a second nuclear age and a period of exceptional climate change, both of which could destroy the planet as we know it.He was speaking at the Royal Society in London yesterday at a conference organised by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which has decided to move the minute hand of its "Doomsday Clock" forward to five minutes to midnight to reflect the increased dangers faced by the world.

Three new forum articles added:Who's Controlling our Weather? by Glenn Kreisberg, 16 Jan 2007The Cygnus Mystery: Did Cosmic Rays Affect Human Evolution? by Andrew Collins, 15 January 2007Two Poems by Jim Macaulay, 15 January 2007

A team of doctors in New York say they are planning to perform the first womb transplant in the US. The procedure would potentially allow women who have had their wombs damaged or removed to develop a pregnancy and give birth.The plan is use a womb from a woman who has died. A womb transplant has been tried once before, in Saudi Arabia in 2000, but then the womb came from a live donor, and was rejected after three months. If the New York team are successful, it could bring new hope of becoming a mother to millions of women worldwide, many of whom have had their wombs removed due to illnesses such as cancer.

For any family, the birth of a child is an intensely moving experience. But when Cameron John Mullinder was born just before Christmas it was a particularly poignant moment. Twenty eight years earlier, at Oldham General Hospital, his mother Louise Brown had made history when she became the world's first test-tube baby. Now, by having a child of her own, she is continuing the family line that her parents had been so desperate to establish.

Japan's space agency has recommended scrapping its first moon mission after more than a decade of delays, a spokeswoman said Monday, in the latest blow to the country's beleaguered space program.The Lunar-A probe was envisioned as planting two seismic sensors on the lunar surface to gather information about the moon's core and learn more about the origins of the Earth's only natural satellite. But development of the so-called penetrator probes has taken so long that the mission's mother ship, which was built 10 years ago, has fallen into disrepair and would require too much money to fix, said Satoko Kanazawa, a spokeswoman for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. The mission would have been Japan's first to the surface of the moon, and was originally scheduled for lift off in 1995. Japan will now scrap the mission but finish development of the penetrator probes and offer the technology to other space programs, including Russia's, Kanazawa said.

strange ancient skull recently uncovered adds to mounting evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred and suggests that humans evolved considerably after settling the European continent some 40,000 years ago.Modern humans emerged from Africa about 150,000 years ago, according to the leading theory (which has been challenged in recent years). The newfound skull is thought to be from sometime in the first 5,000 years of human habitation of Europe. The skull [image] is unlike anything previously dug up.

Many people will do almost anything to try to stave off aging--from undergoing painful nips and tucks to slathering on expensive creams to getting injections and downing pills that promise to erase wrinkles, lift sagging skin and keep the body forever young. One of the hottest anti-aging elixirs du jour is human growth hormone (GH), which has been touted for its supposed ability to do everything from build muscle to shave fat to thicken bones to lower cholesterol.But beware: Eager as you might be to purchase youth in a bottle, a new study says there's zero scientific evidence that growth hormones are any more effective at turning back the clock than tap water or snake oil. On the contrary: Researchers found that if taken by healthy adults it could cause a host of unhealthy side effects, including joint pain, soft tissue swelling, carpal tunnel syndrome, increased breast size in men, and a heightened risk of diabetes and pre-diabetes.

Life on Earth may have announced its arrival billions of years ago with a whistle and a thump, according to planetary scientists.Experiments by an international team of researchers back a controversial theory that life flourished on Earth after primitive organisms arrived aboard a meteorite, itself gouged from Mars by a giant impact.The theory supposes that life was able to gain a tentative foothold on the red planet as it cooled down and became more hospitable several billion years ago. At the time, the planet's surface was regularly bombarded with rocky detritus from the asteroid belt, knocking clumps of rock and the microbes living on them into space, where the gravity of the sun brought them hurtling towards Earth.

Putting to rest a 200-year-old mystery, scientists say Napoleon Bonaparte died from an advanced case of gastric cancer and not arsenic poisoning as some had speculated. After being defeated by the British in 1815, the French Emperor was exiled to St. Helena--an island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Six years later, at the age of 52, Bonaparte whispered his last words, "Head of Army!" An autopsy at the time determined that stomach cancer was the cause of his death. But some arsenic found in 1961 in the ruler's hair sparked rumors of poisoning. Had Napoleon escaped exile, he could have changed the balance of power in Europe; therefore murder speculations didn't seem outlandish.

A massive ruin offers fresh clues about the culture of Peru's vanished Chachapoya, the "cloud warriors" who battled the Inca Empire more than 500 years ago.Best known for building mountainous cliff-side tombs and filling them with bundled mummies, the Chachapoya (cha-cha-POY-ah) were once rulers of the northern Andes. Aside from cliff tombs and stone houses, they have left archaeologists few large ruins to study. Until now.The ruin was first discovered in August by Peruvians, four local men, who live in the remote, heavily forested area. They got in touch with Keith Muscutt, a scholar and author they knew because he has explored the region for three decades and is godfather to some of their children. Muscutt, an expert on the Chachapoya, is the author of 1998's Warrior of the Clouds: A Lost Civilization in the Upper Amazon of Peru.

An unusual dwarf planet discovered in the outer Solar System could be en route to becoming the brightest comet ever known.2003 EL61 is a large, dense, rugby-ball-shaped hunk of rock with a fast rotation rate. Professor Mike Brown has calculated that the object could be due a close encounter with the planet Neptune. If so, Neptune's gravity could catapult it into the inner Solar System as a short-period comet.

A startling discovery by a young Californian boy has helped fill a key gap in the evolution of the horse.Gavin Sutter, aged eight, from Auburn, found the prehistoric bones of a horse dating back 15 million years.Crucially, the remains he found were of a three-toed horse.Horses are known to have evolved from small five-toed animals into the horses we know today, which have only one toe, and the tiny boney remnants of two others.Gavin's find fills a crucial gap in the evolutionary path of the horse, as it evolved from a five-toed to effectively a single-toed animal.

Two members of the Egyptological Society of Malta are promoting the theory that the many ancient Egyptian artefacts unearthed in Malta were brought over by the Egyptians themselves, and not, as commonly thought, by traders.In an article titled Did The Ancient Egyptians Ever Reach Malta?, published in the Egyptian Egyptological journal, Anton Mifsud and Marta Farrugia analysed Egyptian artefacts found here and went through old and recently published material on which to base their conclusions.Dr Mifsud and Ms Farrugia argue that because of their beliefs in afterlife, the ancient Egyptians were extremely reluctant to leave their country to live and possibly die miles away from home. However, war and trade with the Eastern Mediterranean nations and islands lured the Egyptians out of their homeland.

Volunteer archeologists working to preserve Turkey's caves and archeological sites have turned United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) heads with their comprehensive bilingual online inventory, which publicizes information on Turkish archeological sites covering the Stone Age to the Bronze Age. In an effort to create a chronological inventory of Turkey's cultural assets, Oðuz Tanýndý, professor of prehistory at Istanbul University's department of Archeology, established The Archeological Settlements of Turkey (TAY) in 1993. Tanýndý, now TAY's project coordinator, said that Turkey's vast archeological sites are unprotected and in serious danger. The project carried out by his team of volunteer archeologists intends to reclaim archeological sites, and more recently caves, by drawing up an inventory and sharing this information with the international community and Turkish public.

A SINGLE government database storing the personal, medical and financial details of everyone in Britain will come a step closer today with an official plan to merge many public-sector information systems.Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, is expected to propose the public-sector "super-database" as part of a review of public services.But yesterday, the plan came under intense political attack from opposition parties and civil-liberties groups, who fear ministers are intent on creating an expensive and invasive "Big Brother" system.

UK scientists have developed genetically modified chickens capable of laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs.The breakthrough has been announced by the same research centre that created the cloned sheep, Dolly.The Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, says it has produced five generations of birds that can produce useful levels of life-saving proteins in egg whites.The work could lead to a range of drugs that are cheaper and easier to make.

An ivory carving appearing to show the head of a human being marks Modern Man's first attempt at figurative art, archaeologists believe.The carving was found with primitive tools and two human teeth at a site dating back further than any other settlement found in Europe.It is forcing scientists to reassess the date at which Modern Man occupied Europe after leaving Africa, and the routes that were taken.

Recent excavations of Salisbury Plain in southern England have revealed at least two other large stone formations close by the world-famous prehistoric monument.One of the megalithic finds is a sandstone formation that marked a ritual burial mound; the other, a group of stones at the site of an ancient timber circle. The new discoveries suggest that many similar monuments may have been erected in the shadow of Stonehenge, possibly forming part of a much larger complex, experts say. The findings were part of the Stonehenge Riverside Project, a joint initiative to explore the land around the iconic monument. Led by Mike Parker Pearson of Sheffield University, the project involves six English universities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The keepers of the "Doomsday Clock" plan to move its hands forward next Wednesday to reflect what they call worsening nuclear and climate threats to the world.The symbolic clock, maintained by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, currently is set at seven minutes to midnight, with midnight marking global catastrophe.The group did not say in which direction the hands would move. But in a news release previewing an event next Wednesday, they said the change was based on "worsening nuclear, climate threats" to the world."The major new step reflects growing concerns about a 'Second Nuclear Age' marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing 'launch-ready' status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks," the release reads.

The high-resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has imaged the 1997 landing site of NASA's Mars Pathfinder, revealing new details of hardware on the surface and the geology of the region. Pathfinder landed on July 4, 1997, and transmitted data for 12 weeks. Unlike the two larger rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, currently active on Mars, Sojourner could communicate only with the lander, not directly with Earth.The Pathfinder mission's small rover, Sojourner, appears to have moved closer to the stationary lander after the final data transmission from the lander, based on tentative identification of the rover in the image.The lander's ramps, science deck and portions of the airbags can be discerned in the new image. The parachute and backshell used in the spacecraft's descent lie to the south, behind a hill from the viewpoint of the lander. Four bright features may be portions of the heat shield.

Hands over her eyes and her face gripped with terror, the woman's fear of death is all too obvious.The remarkable mummy was found in a hidden burial vault in the Amazon.It is at least 600 years old and has survived thanks to the embalming skills of her tribe, the Chachapoyas or cloud warriors.Eleven further mummies were recovered from the massive cave complex 82ft down.

Two NASA space probes that visited Mars 30 years ago may have found alien microbes on the red planet and inadvertently killed them, a scientist is theorizing.The Viking space probes of 1976-77 were looking for the wrong kind of life, so they didn't recognize it, a geology professor at Washington State University said.Dirk Schulze-Makuch presented his theory in a paper delivered at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington.

The three iconic columns of gas and dust pictured in space by the Hubble Telescope in 1995 may have met their end, the US space agency says. Hubble's image, dubbed the "pillars of creation", has featured in countless papers, magazines and posters. Now, new data shows the pillars being scorched by an exploding star - and a shockwave has probably torn them apart. But because of the time taken for light to reach Earth, we will not see their final destruction for 1,000 years.

UK scientists are preparing to begin trials to develop a new way of fighting cancer using viruses that cause colds.The new therapy would kill tumours while avoiding harming healthy cells by using viruses specially coated to stop detection by the immune system.

The unseasonably warm weather might make meteorologists, climate researchers, and even the odd man and woman on the street a tad nervous. But field archaeologists, digging through what would normally be frozen solid earth covered in a thick layer of snow in the middle of the Norwegian winter, might be excused for thanking God, or Odin, the king of the old Norse gods, for the helping hand.On the second of January, scientists from the archaeological museum in Stavanger, Norway made a major discovery of what is believed to be a Viking burial site at Frøyland in the western parts of Norway. The grave sites excavated so far date back to the 8th and 9th century and are very well preserved.

Scientists have discovered the key to the ability of spicy foods to kill cancer cells.They found capsaicin, an ingredient of jalapeno peppers, triggers cancer cell death by attacking mitochondria - the cells' energy-generating boiler rooms.The research raises the possibility that other cancer drugs could be developed to target mitochondria.

LUCKNOW, India (Reuters) - Indian archaeologists are giving a facelift to two major gates of the country's most famous monument, the centuries-old Taj Mahal. Local sculptors and artisans will restore the main gate and southern entrance to the 17th century architectural wonder in the northern city of Agra, about 400 Km (some 250 miles) from the capital."The work involves restoration of stone inlay that has naturally got decayed and weathered out over the centuries," said K.K. Sharma, an official at the Archaeological Survey of India, the official custodian of heritage sites.Started earlier this week, the work will take around three months.

The first biblical reference to the city of Nob is in Samuel I. During King Saul's reign, after the destruction of Shiloh, priests from the house of Eli resided in Nob, and the tabernacle was located there. After Saul discovered that one of the priests, Ahimelech ben Ahituv, gave David Goliath's sword, which was also kept in Nob, and that David had managed to escape, the king ordered all of Nob's inhabitants killed. "And Nob, the city of the priests, smote he with the edge of the sword, both men and women, children and sucklings, and oxen and asses and sheep, with the edge of the sword." (1 Samuel 22:19)Despite Saul's vengeance, the city remained intact for hundreds of years. The prophet Isaiah mentions it in his description of a journey taken by King Ashur of Assyria in 701 BCE, when he attempted to conquer Jerusalem. Nob is referred to as the last city the Assyrian army passed through on its way to Jerusalem. "This very day shall he halt at Nob, shaking his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem." (Isaiah 10:32) Nob is mentioned again, in Nehemiah's description of the return to Zion, as one of the settlements in the region of Benjamin, located north of Jerusalem between Anathoth, identified with the modern village of Anata, and Ananiah, identified with the modern village of Azzariyeh, according to accepted theories.

A New Yorker with enough adventure cred to run Colorado's Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS), Josh Bernstein is giving the History Channel a swift kick in its dusty demographics.As host of the archaeology-themed Digging for the Truth, Bernstein, 35, has delivered the channel its highest-rated original series (January marks the debut of season three and the release of his first book) and has done more for fedoras and antiquity than anyone since Harrison Ford.ANTHONY CERRETANI caught up with Bernstein as he rested between takes in Bolivia.Read more of this interview ...

The asteroid named after Sir Patrick Moore is hurtling through our galaxy, somewhere between Mars and Jupiter. But the human Sir Patrick Moore is sitting in his study, staring fiercely at me through his monocle. "My asteroid is in the outer asteroid belt," he explains. "It is only a little one, just five miles across." This year - we are dealing in Earth years - the BBC's astronomy programme The Sky At Night is 50 years old. Sunday saw the 650th broadcast - the 649th presented by Sir Patrick. (He has only missed one - when he was poisoned by a rogue goose egg - and was disgusted that the programme was relegated to the graveyard slot of 1.55am.) To mark the occasion, I have taken the pilgrimage to his fairytale cottage Farthings, in Sussex, to hear stories of the stars.Read more of this Daily Mail article ....

Scientists have established that the eating disorder that plagues young women could be genetic, and treated by the contraceptive pill.Bulimia may be caused by hormones, according to new research, which suggests that up to a third of women suffering from the condition could be treated with the contraceptive pill.Scientists investigating the causes of food disorders have discovered that one in three patients who had bulimia also suffered from hormonal disorders which gave them unusually high levels of testosterone, the male hormone.

PHOENIX - A college prank may have damaged ancient American Indian petroglyphs on a butte overlooking Arizona State University's Tempe campus.Vandals climbed Tempe butte and painted a large red "A" - the University of Arizona's color - before the annual football game between the two rivals on Nov. 25. The paint job was first spotted two days before the ASU Sun Devils whipped the Wildcats 28-14.Pranksters also hit the Sun Devils' practice field, painting a blue "A" and "Bear Down," the University of Arizona motto, on the turf.But the red paint on the rocks of the butte could have erased rock art that dates to 1250, city officials said. Tempe could be forced to spend thousands of dollars to fly in a petroglyph expert and have the paint tediously removed by hand.

A University of Arkansas professor's most recent work addresses the question of how human eating habits have evolved over millions of years.Peter Ungar, professor of anthropology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has edited a book, The Evolution of Human Diet: The Known, the Unknown, and the Unknowable, in which scholars from various disciplines address the knowledge and limitations of the field. The book offers an assessment of the current science, the limits of knowledge and possible directions for future research.The idea for the book evolved from a 2003 workshop organized by Ungar and sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which brought together researchers from different fields who were examining the same issues in the evolution of human diet from different perspectives. The book builds on the workshop, examining the evolution of human diet through the hominin fossil record, the archeological record, paleoecology and modeling.

Archaeologist Albert Goodyear is working on the find of his life.Based on radiocarbon tests and artifacts he's found along the Savannah River in South Carolina, Goodyear believes that humans existed in North America as many as 50,000 years ago, shattering the long-held notion that the earliest settlers arrived here about 13,000 years ago in Alaska via a lost land bridge.Not everyone is convinced, but Goodyear believes further excavation and testing at the South Carolina location, known as the Topper site, will confirm his findings.

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexicans have long been taught to blame diseases brought by the Spaniards for wiping out most of their Indian ancestors. But recent research suggests things may not be that simple.While the initial big die-offs are still blamed on the Conquistadors who started arriving in 1519, even more virulent epidemics in 1545 and 1576 may have been caused by a native blood-hemorrhaging fever spread by rats, Mexican researchers say. The idea has sparked heated debate in Mexican academic circles.One camp holds that the epidemics could have been spread by rats migrating during a drought cycle; others say newly arrived Spanish miners may have disturbed the habitat of virus-carrying rodents while searching for gold and silver.The revisionists draw support from one of the only authoritative firsthand accounts of the epidemics, a text lost for hundreds of years until it was found, misfiled, in a Spanish archive.Dr. Francisco Hernandez, a physician to the Spanish king who witnessed the epidemic of 1576 and conducted autopsies, describes a fever that caused heavy bleeding, similar to the hemorrhagic Ebola virus. It raced through the Indian population, killing four out of five people infected, often within a day or two.

Incan civilization was a technological marvel. When the Spanish conquistadors arrived in 1532, they found an empire that spanned nearly 3,000 miles, from present-day Ecuador to Chile, all served by a high-altitude road system that included 200-foot suspension bridges built of woven reeds. It was the Inca who constructed Machu Picchu, a cloud city terraced into a precarious stretch of earth hanging between two Andean peaks. They even put together a kind of Bronze Age Internet, a system of messenger posts along the major roads. In one day, Incan runners amped on coca leaves could relay news some 150 miles down the network.Yet, if centuries of scholarship are to be believed, the Inca, whose rule began 2,000 years after Homer, never figured out how to write. It's an enigma known as the Inca paradox, and for nearly 500 years it has stood as one of the great historical puzzles of the Americas. But now a Harvard anthropologist named Gary Urton may be close to untangling the mystery.

A new book released November 2006 is set to challenge the position of orthodox Egyptology by presenting a new paradigm for the pyramids of Giza. Entitled, The Giza Oracle, by independent researcher and writer, Scott Creighton, it presents a simple yet compelling solution to the mystery of the Giza Pyramid alignments and goes on to demonstrate how all 11 pyramids along with the Great Sphinx form a grand `Precession Wheel', indicating key dates from humankind's remote past - and, indeed, its future. In addition the book demonstrates links between Giza, Teotihuacan in Mexico, Xi'an in China and - peculiarly - the site of Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

When a new construction project breaks ground in Shanghai, nobody can tell whether any ancient tombs or other cultural relics are buried underneath. This is because the government does not ask them to provide an "underground relics report" prior to a new project kicking off.This fact is of worry to local archaeologists, as they often receive calls from construction workers claiming to have found old coffins or other relics while digging.Now archaeologists are calling on the city to issue a new law requiring developers to provide an archaeological report before starting new projects.Scientist cleans a female body from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) at the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.

Egyptian archaeologists have begun restoring the world's oldest wall made of mud bricks, Culture Minister Farouk Hosni said Friday. The 5,000-year-old wall is based in the southern Egyptian governorate of Sohag. Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities Zahi Hawwas said the restoration is carried out in cooperation with the Fine Arts Institute in New York and the University of Pennsylvania.

Proceedings to determine the fate of some 83 lots of valued cultural items known as the Kawaihae Caves collection begin anew today at the Bishop Museum after a six-year halt.Fourteen Hawaiian organizations are expected to take place in repatriation hearings involving some of the most significant items known in Hawaiian culture, including a wooden female figure and several stick 'aumakua.It will also be the first time some of the claimants will get to see the items since they were retrieved from the Big Island cave complex last fall.Hui Malama I Na Kupuna o Hawai'i Nei had received the items on loan from the museum in 2000 and placed them in the caves from which they are believed to have been taken in 1905 by three men known as the Forbes expedition and sold to the museum.Hui Malama leaders said the items were stolen by the expedition, and that its act of returning them to the caves constituted repatriation.

A mysterious rocklike object that crashed through the roof of a home and landed in the bathroom was a meteorite, experts said Friday.For now, scientists are calling the dense metallic object "Freehold Township" after the place where it fell. It's about the size of a golf ball but weighs about 13 ounces, as much of a can of soup. Magnets held near it are attracted to it.

The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.

Art Bell interviews author Graham Hancock about his thesis on how "supernatural" beings interacted with and shaped human consciousness from ancient to current times.Download the interview here on the Coast to Coast AM website or listen to streamed audio recordings.

Captured on South Beach, Satan later escaped. His demons and the horrible Bloody Mary are now killing people. God has fled. Avenging angels hide out in the Everglades. And other tales from children in Dade's homeless shelters.Article Published Jun 5, 1997

MOSCOW: An ancient Vishnu idol has been found during excavation in an old village in Russia's Volga region, raising questions about the prevalent view on the origin of ancient Russia.The idol found in Staraya (old) Maina village dates back to VII-X century AD. Staraya Maina village in Ulyanovsk region was a highly populated city 1700 years ago, much older than Kiev, so far believed to be the mother of all Russian cities."We may consider it incredible, but we have ground to assert that Middle-Volga region was the original land of Ancient Rus. This is a hypothesis, but a hypothesis, which requires thorough research," Reader of Ulyanovsk State University's archaeology department Dr Alexander Kozhevin told state-run television Vesti.

The largest Harappan Necropolis (city of the dead or burial ground) the Indian subcontinent has known so far has been found near village Sanauli on the banks of Yamuna in Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh.These findings have been reported in the latest issue (No 36) of Puratattva, the journal of the Indian Archaeological Society.Chairman of the Society Dr SP Gupta said, "Never before a site like Sanauli was found and excavated in India. An absolutely plain ground with thick deposit of sand and silt harbouring lush green cultivated field of the best variety of sugarcane could never attract any archaeologist to explore it, but then it has yielded the remains of as many as 116 graves in a huge cemetery, which if further excavated will certainly yield many more of it."

A black hole has been found inside a compact group of ancient stars known as a globular cluster. Astronomers say the discovery is interesting because many doubted black holes could exist in such locations.Some computer simulations had suggested a newly formed black hole would simply be ejected from the cluster as a result of gravitational interactions.Tom Maccarone, of the University of Southampton (UK), and colleagues report the finding in the journal Nature.

Government officials plan to re-examine the case for sending Britons into space, almost 50 years after the UK pulled out of human space flight. In a series of workshops run by the government-backed British National Space Centre (BNSC), scientists, space industry experts and policymakers will evaluate the case for overturning Britain's traditional position not to fund an astronaut programme.Details of the workshops will be announced next week after a two-day meeting between the BNSC and the European Space Agency (Esa) in Edinburgh which will examine Britain's future in space.Nasa and Esa have already announced plans to send people to explore the moon and Mars. A spokesman for the BNSC said that, given the possible importance of human space flight in the future, it did not want to rule out anything for Britain in the long term.

Despite the lack of tails or fins, squids and jellyfish maneuver the seas with the greatest of ease.Now researchers have designed a water thruster inspired by the cephalopods' sleek and efficient propulsion system that could bring new precision to streamlined watercrafts and even lead to tiny diagnostic robots able to navigate the human digestive tract.The effort, lead by Kamran Mohseni, an assistant professor of aerospace engineering sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is part of a larger plan to develop a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles that measure and monitor ocean conditions.

The billionaire founder of Amazon.com has released the first images of the launch of a private spacecraft that could bring space travel to the masses. A video of the cone-shaped Goddard vehicle shows it climbing to about 85m (285ft) before returning back to Earth.The test launch took place in November 2006 in a remote part of Texas, but details have only now been released.The images mark the first time Jeff Bezos has broken his silence on the work of his space company, Blue Origin.

NASA's climatologists have an enormous problem: when it comes to data on the atmosphere, they have too much of it.To help understand climate change, NASA has created its Earth Observing System (EOS), made up of a dozen satellites plus a host of weather balloons and ground-based sensors that collect data such as air temperatures, water-vapour densities and aerosol concentrations. Terabytes of such measurements have been streaming in each day, and the agency was quickly swamped with so much data that all it could do was dump it on disc drives.Now it has hit on a simple way to make that data accessible: software that superimposes it on the global 3D maps provided by Google Earth.

The crunch of Martian soil underfoot and the feel of Martian wind against your cheek could one day be experienced by anyone with an internet connection as a result of a new collaboration between NASA and internet titan Google.Google has already produced interactive maps of Mars and the Moon by combining their own software with NASA imagery (see NASA and Google bring Mars to PCs everywhere).Now, NASA and Google have signed a Space Act Agreement that will see the two organisations cooperating to make more NASA data accessible to anyone on the internet."As we go back to the Moon, as we go on to Mars, as we go to near-Earth asteroids, we want every person not only in America but throughout the world to be able to travel with us and to feel the excitement of what it feels like to be on a new planet," says S. Pete Worden, director of NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California, US.

Combe Down Stone Mines near Bath are being stabilised and recorded as part of a long running programme by Oxford Archaeology.The mines, situated about two kilometres south of the city of Bath, were extensively quarried for the highly sought after Bath limestone between 1730 and 1860 and did not cease operations until the early years of the 20th century. The high quality stone was used not only for buildings in Bath but also in the construction of prestigious buildings such as Buckingham Palace.Working in tandem with Hydrock, the structural engineering company who are stabilising the site, Oxford Archaeology hope to assess the significance of the deposits and provide advice upon their preservation and recording.

Rising seas, caused by global warming, have for the first time washed an inhabited island off the face of the Earth. The obliteration of Lohachara island, in India's part of the Sundarbans where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal, marks the moment when one of the most apocalyptic predictions of environmentalists and climate scientists has started coming true. As the seas continue to swell, they will swallow whole island nations, from the Maldives to the Marshall Islands, inundate vast areas of countries from Bangladesh to Egypt, and submerge parts of scores of coastal cities.Eight years ago, as exclusively reported in The Independent on Sunday, the first uninhabited islands - in the Pacific atoll nation of Kiribati - vanished beneath the waves. The people of low-lying islands in Vanuatu, also in the Pacific, have been evacuated as a precaution, but the land still juts above the sea. The disappearance of Lohachara, once home to 10,000 people, is unprecedented.It has been officially recorded in a six-year study of the Sunderbans by researchers at Calcutta's Jadavpur University. So remote is the island that the researchers first learned of its submergence, and that of an uninhabited neighbouring island, Suparibhanga, when they saw they had vanished from satellite pictures.

The circumstances of the hanging of Saddam Hussein have turned the former Iraqi leader into a martyr, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak has said.Mr Mubarak said the unofficial pictures that emerged of the event were revolting and barbaric.The chaotic scenes at the execution, during which Saddam was taunted, have been condemned across the world.

This year is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, forecasters have predicted. Climate change experts said the global temperature is expected to be 0.54C above the long-term average of 14C.There is a 60% probability that 2007 will be as warm or warmer than the current warmest year, they said.That was 1998, when temperatures were 0.52C above the long-term average.The forecast comes from the Met Office, which joins forces with the University of East Anglia each January to issue predictions for the global surface temperature for the coming year.

A planetary configuration not seen since 1776 is coming our way, heralding chaos, revolution, and rebirth. Let the stars guide you through the coming storm.All alone and more paranoid by the day, President George W. Bush is getting it from all sides, and despite his bravado, which some people call a defensive, adolescent swagger, he can't trust anybody, not even his mother. (Especially not his mother.) His detractors blame him for the state the world is in. Extremists go one further and say the world is coming to an end. Most of us in this country just want gas prices to go down, the dollar to go up, and America to go back to the good old days.Astrologers can tell you that that's not going to happen, but that, no matter what, we'll never go broke either. They can also explain George Bush's predicament by pointing out that he's a Cancer, and that in coming years Cancers are going to be challenged to expand their whole worldview. In fact, we can all gain perspective on what is happening politically, culturally, and socially in America by turning to the Zodiac, especially the signs of Cancer and Capricorn. For nations, like people, have horoscopes.

NASA scientists are developing a speech recognition system that can understand and relay words that haven't been said out loud.The system uses electrodes attached to the throat to detect biological signals that occur as a person reads or talks to him- or herself.The signals can then be converted into text or synthesized speech.

Like many treasures from antiquity, they were chance finds, but a fabulous hoard of more than 50,000 pieces unearthed during excavations in Athens has also provided a window on to the ancient civilisation of Greece. The treasure trove, discovered during excavations to build the New Acropolis Museum in the capital, includes relics ranging from a near perfectly preserved marble bust of Aristotle to cooking utensils, children's games and figurines of little known deities.Thanks to the New Acropolis Museum we were able to conduct the biggest ever dig within the walls of Athens' ancient city," archaeologist, Stamatia Eleftheratou, said. "The excavation yielded artefacts that told us a lot about people's habits, the way they worshipped and their day to day lives."Some of the treasures, such as an ornate statuette of the eastern deity Zeus Heliopolites, are unique - providing evidence of a cult of a god hitherto unknown - and extraordinarily well preserved.

The Taupo Volcanic Zone of New Zealand appears to have had twin eruptions only 20 miles apart within days of each other a quarter-million years ago. Each eruption belched out more than 25 cubic miles (100 cubic kilometers) of rock and volcanic ash. This is the first evidence of twin supervolcanic eruptions.It's possible one of these triggered the other," said geologist Darren Gravley of the University of Auckland, New Zealand. But exactly how the triggering might have worked is uncertain.What is clear from the explorations of Gravley and his colleagues of the Mamaku and Ohakuri volcanic deposits is that they were created very close in time. That's surprising, since most caldera or "supervolcano" eruptions in any one region tend to be tens of thousands of years apart, or at least that's been the general idea until now.

The Yomiuri Shimbun.In an effort to aid research into the nation's ancient history, the Imperial Household Agency has started to allow a range of academic organizations to visit Imperial tombs previously off-limits to the public.Though a number of restrictions will remain on such visits, it is hoped full-scale study of the tombs will help shed light on key events behind the foundation of the country.In July 2005, 15 historical organizations, including the Japanese Archaeological Association, asked the agency's Archives and Mausolea Department for permission to inspect 11 Imperial tombs, including Emperor Nintoku's mausoleum (Oyama tumulus) in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture.The agency decided to offer access not only to historical groups, but also other academic including zoological and botanical research bodies.

Scientists have genetically engineered a dozen cows to be free from the proteins that cause mad cow disease, a breakthrough that may make the animals immune to the brain-wasting disease.An international team of researchers from the U.S. and Japan reported Sunday that they had "knocked out" the gene responsible for making the proteins, called prions. The disease didn't take hold when brain tissue from two of the genetically engineered cows was exposed to bad prions in the laboratory, they said.Experts said the work may offer another layer of security to people concerned about eating infected beef, although though any food derived from genetically engineered animals must first be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

A synthetic chemical similar to the active ingredient in marijuana makes new cells grow in rat brains. What is more, in rats this cell growth appears to be linked with reducing anxiety and depression. The results suggest that marijuana, or its derivatives, could actually be good for the brain.In mammals, new nerve cells are constantly being produced in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is associated with learning, memory, anxiety and depression. Other recreational drugs, such as alcohol, nicotine and cocaine, have been shown to suppress this new growth. Xia Zhang of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and colleagues decided to see what effects a synthetic cannabinoid called HU210 had on rats' brains.They found that giving rats high doses of HU210 twice a day for 10 days increased the rate of nerve cell formation, or neurogenesis, in the hippocampus by about 40%.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (AP) -- Young Americans have high levels of apathy about NASA's new vision of sending astronauts back to the moon by 2017 and eventually on to Mars, recent surveys show.Concerned about this lack of interest, NASA's image-makers are taking a hard look at how to win over the young generation -- media-saturated teens and 20-somethings growing up on YouTube and Google and largely indifferent to manned space flight."If you're going to do a space exploration program that lasts 40 years, if you just do the math, those are the guys that are going to carry the tax burden," said Mary Lynne Dittmar, president of a Houston company that surveyed young people about the space program.The 2004 and 2006 surveys by Dittmar Associates Inc. revealed high levels of indifference among 18- to 25-year-olds toward manned trips to the moon and Mars.

HERODION, West Bank -- At least two nights a week, Abu Moussa, the mukhtar of a small Bedouin village you won't find on a map, takes his sleeping bag, tools, and a small group of men and heads into the Judean hills to practice the trade passed down from his father and grandfather before him -- raiding ancient tombs for treasures. The tradition goes back centuries, though today it is considered illegal by both Israeli and Palestinian police. But as the Palestinian economy crumbles in the face of Israeli security restrictions and crippling international sanctions against the Hamas-led government of the Palestinian Authority, the ancient treasures buried in the biblical landscape have become a major source of income for many residents of the West Bank."The mountains and valleys in this area are full of caves. All the boys and men in the village search the caves to look for antiquities, and they bring whatever they find to me, because I am the mukhtar, the leader of the village, and I know about all these things," the 50-year-old Abu Moussa told visitors to his tiny village southeast of Jerusalem, which residents call Herodion after the archeological site nearby. He displayed a table full of artifacts, including a 3,000-year-old Canaanite earthenware jug, several oil lamps and decorated bowls, and fistfuls of ancient coins, weights, and arrowheads.

A scientific revolution is taking place in the study of our ancient past. Once the preserve of academics who analysed prehistoric stones and crumbling parchment, the subject has been transformed by the study of our genes by scientists who are using the blood of the living to determine the actions of men and women centuries ago.In the process, a mass of fascinating information about our predecessors has been revealed, from the physical appearance of Britain's first Stone Age settlers to the impact that invading Romans, Saxons and Normans had on our bloodline.But now David has been revealed to be my long-lost 'brother'. Our DNA shows that, between AD1000 and 1400, either in Ireland or Scotland, our lineages shared a common ancestor, a grandfather of multiple 'greatness'. Even better, that ancestor turns out to have been a direct descendant of the Irish king Niall of the Nine Hostages, who created a vast fifth-century dynasty around modern Strabane. David and I are related to a notorious Irish warlord. Not bad for a pair of old Fleet Street hacks.

PARIS - The French space agency said it will publish its archive of UFO sightings and other phenomena online, but will keep the names of those who reported them off the site to protect them from pestering by space fanatics.Jacques Arnould, an official at the National Space Studies Centre, said the French database of around 1,600 incidents would go live in late January or mid-February.He said the CNES had been collecting statements and documents for almost 30 years to archive and study them.

CAIRO: Egypt announced Sunday the discovery of a carving dating back to the 12th century BC which could hold the key to valuable information on Karnak Temple, the largest ancient religious site in the world. According to an Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) statement, the stone carving was found during excavations at the Kibash Alley that links the Karnak with the Luxor Temple. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni reportedly pointed out to the significance of the find which it reveals a lot of new facts about the 20th dynasty. Dr Zahi Hawas, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities explained that the large quartzite stone, carved with 17 lines of hieroglyphics, highlights the achievements of high priest Bak En Khonso and his contributions to the grand hall at Karnak.

Picking through centuries-old rubbish, masonry and discarded body parts beneath an abandoned Tuscan church, an Italian historian believes she has solved one of history's great crime mysteries.For more than four centuries, researchers have puzzled over the fact that Francesco I Medici, the son of the first Grand Duke, Cosimo, died within hours of his wife in October 1587. Legend had it they were poisoned by his brother and successor, a cardinal.Modern historians have tended to settle for the more down-to-earth explanation that they died of malaria. But Donatella Lippi, an associate professor at the University of Florence, told the Guardian yesterday that she and other researchers had established beyond doubt that Francesco was poisoned and that evidence from "mountains of debris" underneath the deconsecrated church strongly suggested his wife was too

Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has been executed by hanging at a secure facility in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity. Iraqi TV said the execution took place just before 0600 local time (0300GMT).A representative of the prime minister and a Sunni Muslim cleric were present. Footage of him being led to the gallows was later shown on Iraqi state TV. Two co-defendants, Saddam Hussein's half-brother and a former chief judge, are to be executed at a later date. All three were sentenced to death by an Iraqi court on 5 November after a year-long trial over the 1982 killings of 148 Shias in the town of Dujail.BBC News article link hereThe Final Moments Before Execution (Sky News)Iraqi television have released pictures leading up to Saddam Hussein's execution. The video footage ends before the point of Saddam's death.

The black flint stone shaped like a spearhead immediately caught Joan Rennick's eye during a routine beach stroll one summer afternoon seven years ago. A talisman collector, Rennick had been limited to a moose tooth and a hollow rock during her previous wanderings across New Brunswick. But this discovery was different."Gee! It's my lucky day," she recalled thinking. She started wearing the rock around her neck every day, for good luck, without knowing her talisman was a 9,000-year-old artifact that could help scientists understand the cultural sequence of North American civilization.Now, after the prehistoric tool was authenticated, a local archaeologist is planning to dig the beach around the fittingly named Cape Spear region on the province's east coast.Archaeologist Brent Suttie believes Ms. Rennick's rock was crafted into a hunting weapon between 7,000 and 7,500 B.C.

Interior Minister Pascal Couchepin has signed an accord with Peru aimed at returning stolen goods, particularly archaeological artefacts.Switzerland is among the world's five biggest trade hubs for art objects, according to the Federal Culture Office.The signing ceremony with the Peruvian deputy foreign minister, Gonzalo Gutierrez Reinel, took place in the capital, Lima, during an official visit by Couchepin.Peru has a history and cultural heritage dating back thousands of years. According to recent archaeological findings, settlements existed as early as 11,000 BC. Around the 13th century BC, cultures such as the Chav?n, Chim?, Nazca, and Tiahuanaco migrated into the region, now known as Peru, from the north.

A survey of ancient Greek sources reveals the surprising properties of certain wines that continue to provoke the curiosity of scholars today.Seen here, a parody of Circe offering Odysseus wine that contains a magical herb that will make him behave like an animal. Hermes has given the ancient Greek hero another herb called moly so that Odysseus is not seduced by Circe. Medical historian Sevasti Karahaliou says moly must have been an anti-aphrodisiac. (From an early 4th century BC Boeotian cup, Ashmolean Museum.)

A Bronze Age logboat which had lain unseen in the River Tay for 3,000 years is being studied by archaeologists. It is hoped the find will yield important new information about how human ancestors lived. Although the boat, made from the trunk of a single oak, was found five years ago, it was only lifted out of the Tay during the summer.Repairs carried out on the 30ft vessel have already given experts an insight into Bronze Age technology. The boat, which would have been powered by up to 12 men, is being studied by archaeologists in Edinburgh who have claimed it to be one of the best examples of its kind in Scotland.

THE lives of the bronze age people who settled, worked and traded in East Cambridgeshire are shrouded in mystery. But a dedicated band of volunteers in Sutton is throwing light on this integral part of our past, and look set to make real advances in our archaeological understanding of East Cambridgeshire in the new year. IAN RAY reports on a project that shows how a community-organised venture has made a significant contribution to our knowledge of local pre-history.FOR more than three years now, a group of volunteers, who have named themselves the Sutton Archaeological Group, have worked steadily to excavate a Bronze Age barrow at the village's gravel pits. The barrow - a Bronze Age burial mound - has already provided a glimpse into the activities of the people in the area, but the team hopes to dig deeper and even uncover some human remains. See article dated 27 Dec of the Ely Standard

Temperatures in China will rise significantly in coming decades and water shortages will worsen, state media has reported, citing the government's first national assessment of global climate change. "Greenhouse gases released due to human activity are leading to ever more serious problems in terms of climate change," the Ministry of Science and Technology said in a statement. "Global climate change has an impact on the nation's ability to develop further," said the ministry, one of 12 government departments that prepared the report.Read more ....

TORONTO, Ontario (AP) -- A giant ice shelf the size of 11,000 football fields has snapped free from Canada's Arctic, scientists said. The mass of ice broke clear 16 months ago from the coast of Ellesmere Island, about 800 kilometers (497 miles) south of the North Pole, but no one was present to see it in Canada's remote north.Scientists using satellite images later noticed that it became a newly formed ice island in just an hour and left a trail of icy boulders floating in its wake.Warwick Vincent of Laval University, who studies Arctic conditions, traveled to the newly formed ice island and could not believe what he saw."This is a dramatic and disturbing event. It shows that we are losing remarkable features of the Canadian North that have been in place for many thousands of years. We are crossing climate thresholds, and these may signal the onset of accelerated change ahead," Vincent said Thursday.In 10 years of working in the region he has never seen such a dramatic loss of sea ice, he said.

JOHN HALPERN clearly remembers what made him change his mind about psychedelic drugs. It was the early 1990s and the young medical student at a hospital in Brooklyn, New York, was getting frustrated that he could not do more to help the alcoholics and addicts in his care. He sounded off to an older psychiatrist, who mentioned that LSD and related drugs had once been considered promising treatments for addiction. "I was so fascinated that I did all this research," Halpern recalls. "I was reading all these papers from the 60s and going, whoa, wait a minute! How come nobody's talking about this?"More than a decade later, Halpern is now an associate director of substance abuse research at Harvard University's McLean Hospital and is at the forefront of a revival of research into psychedelic medicine. He recently received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to give late-stage cancer patients the psychedelic drug MDMA, also known as ecstasy. He is also laying the groundwork for testing LSD as a treatment for dreaded super-migraines known as cluster headaches.And Halpern is not alone. Clinical trials of psychedelic drugs are planned or under way at numerous centres around the world for conditions ranging from anxiety to alcoholism. It may not be long before doctors are legally prescribing hallucinogens for the first time in decades. "There are medicines here that have been overlooked, that are fundamentally valuable," says Halpern.

A federal judge has ruled against the founders of a Southeastern Arizona church that deifies marijuana and uses it as a sacrament, saying they don't have a "sincere" religious belief. In her refusal to dismiss charges against Dan and Mary Quaintance, U.S. District Judge Judith C. Herrera in Albuquerque wrote that evidence indicates the pair "adopted their 'religious' belief in cannabis as a sacrament and deity in order to justify their lifestyle choice to use marijuana."Herrera's Dec. 22 order means the government's criminal case against the Quaintances will proceed in the new year. The couple is scheduled to go to trial on Jan. 16 on criminal charges of possessing more than 100 pounds of marijuana, as well as conspiracy charges.

In a small-scale preliminary study, a UA psychiatrist has found that psilocybin, the active agent in psychedelic mushrooms, is effective in relieving the symptoms of people who suffer from severe obsessive compulsive disorder.Dr. Francisco A. Moreno and his colleagues conducted the first FDA-approved clinical study of psilocybin since it was outlawed in 1970. The results are published in the latest edition of the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry.Moreno cautions that the study was simply to test the safety of administering psilocybin to OCD patients. The effectiveness of the drug is still in question until a larger controlled study can be conducted. Still, in each of the nine patients in the study, psilocybin completely removed OCD symptoms for a period of generally four to 24 hours, with some patients remaining symptom-free for days.

A new generation of antibiotics could halve the length of time people need to take medication, scientists say. London researchers are developing what they hope will be the first of these - a compound to treat the hospital superbug MRSA in the nose.It tackles bacteria currently "left behind" because they are resistant to standard antibiotics.The anti-MRSA drug will be tested in humans next year and may be available in five years.

TEHRAN, Dec. 24 (Mehr News Agency) -- Iran is seeking Japan's cooperation for providing satellite images needed for preservation of historical sites, said a Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization (CHTO) official here on Sunday. Mohammad-Kazem Kholdinassab, the CHTO's International Department head, added his country is drawing up a draft to present to Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that encourages bilateral cooperation in archaeological excavation, monuments' renovation, and satellite imagery.There are also plans to provide a chance for scholars of the two sides to conduct joint studies and research, he explained. He noted that since Japanese scholars and archaeologists apply the most advanced equipment for satellite imagery and photography, they have the capacity to help their Iranian counterparts preserve historical sites.

We've used artificial light to make the world a much brighter place than it used to be. If light were a drug, you might say that humans have become addicted.But brighter may not be better."Darkness oftentimes is viewed as a hindrance," says Roger Ekirch, a historian at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. Ekirch, author of At Day's Close: Night in Times Past, says humans have spent hundreds of years seemingly intent on turning night into day.

LIMA, Peru - Heavy rains damaged several adobe walls in the ancient ruins of Chan Chan, the world's largest mud city on Peru's northern coast, the newspaper El Comercio reported Saturday.An unusual downpour Friday morning saturated the top seven inches of the walls in a southern portion of the ruins and penetrated the sides, Cristobal Campana, the director of the archaeological site, told the newspaper.With more rains expected in the usually arid coastal desert zone, workers were covering the walls with plastic tarps at the site near Trujillo, nearly 300 miles northwest of the capital, Lima.