Newsdesk Archive
Archaeologists have unearthed a 3,000-year-old skeleton of a man who appears to be clutching a dagger and is posed as though he were about to thrust the weapon into something, or someone, according to a Cultural Heritage News report from Iran. The unusual burial is the first of its kind for Iran, and possibly for the rest of the world. "He is holding a 26-centimeter dagger and appears to be making a forward thrust," said archaeologist Ali Mahforuzi, who led the excavation at Gohar Tepe, where the skeleton was found. Gohar Tepe is located in northeastern Iran near the town of Behshahr and the Caspian Sea.
The massive, hollow crests that protrude from atop the heads of duck-billed dinosaurs did not help their sense of smell, as previously believed. The crests had a variety of shapes, resembling helmets, hatches and tubes.In the past scientists proposed the crests worked as brain coolers, but most researchers agree that notion is unlikely. Scientists even once thought they were used as snorkels, an idea long ago discounted.David Evans reconstructed the brain cavity of an herbivorous lambeosaur, also known as the "cows of the Cretaceous period," creating the first ever cast of the dino's brain, which was about the size of your fist.Lambeosaurs roamed the planet from 85 million to 65 million years ago.
They already use basic tools, have rudimentary language and star in TV commercials, but now scientists have proof that chimpanzees are more closely related to humans than other great apes.Genetic tests comparing DNA from humans, chimps, gorillas and orang-utans reveal striking similarities in the way chimps and humans evolve that set them apart from the others.The finding adds weight to a controversial proposal to scrap the long-used chimp genus "Pan" and reclassify the animals as members of the human family. The move would give chimps a new place in creation's pecking order alongside humans, the only survivor of the genus Homo.
By Simon Jenkins, The Guardian West of Amesbury on the A303, the road dips and rises towards a meadow in the distance. In the meadow stands a clump of grey stones, looking like dominoes rearranged by a shell from the neighbouring artillery range. The clump is Britain's greatest stone-age monument.Nobody can touch it. Stonehenge is cursed. I have bet every chairman of English Heritage - Lord Montagu, Sir Jocelyn Stevens and Sir Neil Cossons - that no plan of theirs to meddle with the stones will ever work. This week the latest tunnel proposal collapsed, following last year's rejection of a new visitor centre. The fate of the site is consigned to that Blairite neverland called "consultation", joining St Bart's and Crossrail among the living dead, projects which move only because they are maggot-ridden with costs.I have attended many Stonehenge consultations. They are raving madhouses. The sanest people present are the pendragons, druids, warlocks, Harry Potters, sons of the sun and daughters of the moon. They have a clear use for the stones and speak English. Weirdness sets in with Wiltshire county councillors, health-and-safety officers and archaeologists, all of whom think the stones are theirs as of right. But for total extragalactic dottiness, nothing tops the Ministry of Defence. It moves only in twos, each official with a soldier doppelganger at his side. .......
Sam Tabor, a professor of experimental nuclear physics at FSU and director of the university's Superconducting Accelerator Laboratory, recently performed the experiment at the GSI laboratory in Darmstadt, Germany, in collaboration with the international team. In the experiment, a cigar-shaped atom was created using a particle collider. To the scientists' surprise, this atom demonstrated a novel kind of radioactive decay by spitting out two free protons at the same time. Radioactive decay normally involves the emission of one of three types of particle: a helium nucleus consisting of two protons and two neutrons, an electron or a photon. Exotic atoms engineered to contain fewer neutrons than in the atom's natural state were expected to break down by emitting protons one at a time. But the correlated two-proton decay hadn't been seen before and represents a new form of radioactivity. The team's findings were published in the Jan. 19 issue of Nature, the world's foremost scientific weekly journal.
In an unprecedented move, Israel's top archaeological body is recommending that the Megiddo Prison be relocated due to the recent discovery of the most ancient Christian place of worship ever found in Israel on the grounds of the prison. The ruins of the Christian prayer hall, which was located inside a Roman villa, date back to the first half of the third century CE, making the chapel the earliest place of Christian worship ever unearthed in the Holy Land, excavation director and Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologist Yotam Tepper said Tuesday. The site in question, which is located between an ancient Jewish village dating back to the Roman period and what used to be a Roman Army camp, was uncovered last year after authorities sought to expand the prison grounds and prisoners stumbled upon the ruins during routine excavations. The building, which is thought to have belonged to a Roman officer, has a rectangular hall with a mosaic floor bearing geometric patterns, a medallion decorated with drawings of fish - a symbol widely used in early Christianity - and three Greek inscriptions.
Global sea levels could rise by about 30cm during this century if current trends continue, a study warns.Australian researchers found that sea levels rose by 19.5cm between 1870 and 2004, with accelerated rates in the final 50 years of that period. The research, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, used data from tide gauges around the world. The findings fit within predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
ROME (AP) - It served first as a notebook for ancient painters and then as part of a mummy's wrapping. Now, a first century B.C. parchment believed to contain the earliest cartography of the Greek-Roman era will be on display next month in the northern city of Turin.The Papyrus of Artemidorus tells a tale of more than 2,000 years of art and culture.Egyptologist Alessandro Roccati, of the University of Turin, said the parchment was "extraordinary" in that it "conserves direct and ancient testimony that helps reconstruct history." Roccati was not involved in the project.The parchment's story begins around the mid-first century B.C., when a copyist in Alexandria, Egypt, began working on a blank parchment to copy the second of 11 books by Greek geographer Artemidorus of Ephesus.
Researchers have found that the shape of the human skull has changed significantly over the past 650 years. Modern people possess less prominent features but higher foreheads than our medieval ancestors.Writing in the British Dental Journal, the team took careful measurements of groups of skulls spanning across 30 generations. The scientists said the differences between past and present skull shapes were "striking".
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- A southern Malaysian state will appoint a team of scientists and experts to hunt for a "Bigfoot" beast after the reported sighting of three giant human-like creatures, officials said Thursday. Johor Chief Minister Abdul Ghani Othman said the state will form an official Bigfoot-tracking team in a serious bid to find evidence of such a beast following the reported sightings late last year in the Endau Rompin National Park forest. "The mystery of Bigfoot's existence has attracted a lot of interest," he was quoted as saying by the Bernama national news agency. "We hope the expedition will be able to prove its existence." Ghani's aide confirmed the report Thursday, saying state administrators decided to set up the team after a council meeting late Wednesday.
The Dalai Lama has a cold. He has been hacking and sniffling his way around Washington, DC, for three days, calling on President Bush and Condoleezza Rice and visiting the Booker T. Washington Public Charter School for Technical Arts. Now he's onstage at the Washington Convention Center, preparing to address 14,000 attendees at the Society for Neuroscience's annual conference.The mood is tense. The State Department Diplomatic Security Service has swept the hallways for explosives. Agents stand at their posts.The 14th incarnation of the Living Buddha of Compassion approaches the podium, clears his throat, and blows his nose loudly. "So now I am releasing my stress," he says. The audience dissolves into laughter.The Dalai Lama is here to give a speech titled "The Neuroscience of Meditation." Over the past few years, he has supplied about a dozen Tibetan Buddhist monks to Richard Davidson, a prominent neuroscience professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Davidson's research created a stir among brain scientists when his results suggested that, in the course of meditating for tens of thousands of hours, the monks had actually altered the structure and function of their brains. The professor thought the Dalai Lama would make an interesting guest speaker at the Society for Neuroscience's annual meeting, and the program committee jumped at the chance. The speech also gives the Tibetan leader an opportunity to promote one of his cherished goals: an alliance between Buddhism and science.
The Earth Institute at Columbia University--Lying beneath more than two miles of Antarctic ice, Lake Vostok may be the best-known and largest subglacial lake in the world, but it is not alone down there. Scientists have identified more than 145 other lakes trapped under the ice. Until now, however, none have approached Vostok's size or depth.In the February 2006 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, scientists from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a member of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, describe for the first time the size, depth and origin of Vostok's two largest neighbors. The two ice-bound lakes are referred to as 90ºE and Sovetskaya for the longitude of one and the Russian research station coincidentally built above the other. The scientists' findings also indicate that, as suspected with Lake Vostok, an exotic ecosystem may still be thriving in the icy waters 35 million years after being sealed off from the surface. Geophysicists Robin Bell and Michael Studinger of Lamont-Doherty combined data from ice-penetrating radar, gravity surveys, satellite images, laser altimetry and records of a Soviet Antarctic Expedition that unknowingly traversed the lakes in 1958-1959. The shorelines of the lakes appeared in satellite images of the region as perturbations in the surface of the East Antarctic ice sheet. In addition, because the ice is effectively floating on the surface of the lakes, the ice sheet exhibits slight depressions over the lakes that appear in radar and laser elevations.
RUSSIA is planning to mine a rare fuel on the moon by 2020 with a permanent base and a heavy-cargo transport link, a Russian space official says."We are planning to build a permanent base on the moon by 2015 and by 2020 we can begin the industrial-scale delivery ... of the rare isotope Helium-3," Nikolai Sevastyanov, head of the Energia space corporation, was quoted by ITAR-TASS news agency as saying at an academic conference.The International Space Station (ISS) would play a key role in the project and a regular transport relay to the moon would be established with the help of the planned Clipper spaceship and the Parom, a space capsule intended to tug heavy cargo containers around space, Mr Sevastyanov said.
new study pinpoints the extreme wobble of Mars' axis over millions of years and the planet's polar ice caps as the sources of glaciers that have left their marks on Martian mid-latitudes. Mars' unstable spin axis now has a 25.2-degree tilt, which doesn't have much effect on Martian seasons. In contrast, Earth has a 25.2-degree tilt. But Mars' tilt, or "obliquity," can sometimes reach 50 degrees. When that happens, summertime in either hemisphere puts the sun high in the Martian polar skies, where it sits for months, evaporating water ice that causes snowstorms far way, on the slopes of Mars' tall volcanoes.
A strange looking sea creature washed up on the shores of Cayman Brac this weekend.Layman Scott found the fish while walking along the beach early Sunday morning. It is roughly thirty inches long, more than half of which is a long, eel-like tail attached to a fish body. It has pale pink scales, pectoral fins, a dorsal fin and a small feathery fin on its belly.Local fishermen say they have not seen a creature quite like this before. It has boney bristles all along its spine, right down to the tip of its tail and small sharp teeth, which curve slightly inward.
Geochemists have found the first hard evidence of a titanic collision between asteroids 8 million years ago. Modelers suggested that such a catastrophic event gave birth to the Veritas "family" of asteroids about 8 million years ago, and now a cosmic dust layer buried in marine sediment verifies the tale.The planets may keep to themselves, but comets and asteroids wander about, colliding with each other and with the larger planetary bodies. Sometimes, Earth sweeps up the dusty debris from such collisions.
ROME - Archaeologists digging beneath the Roman Forum have discovered a 3,000-year-old tomb that pre-dates the birth of ancient Rome by several hundred years.State TV Thursday night showed an excavation team removing vases from the tomb, which resembled a deep well.Archaeologists were excavating under the level of the ancient forum, a popular tourist site, when they dug up the tomb, which they suspect is part of an entire necropolis, the Italian news agency ANSA reported."I am convinced that the excavations will bring more tombs to light," ANSA quoted Rome's archaeology commissioner, Eugenio La Rocca, as saying.
Listen more kindly to the New York Irishmen who assure you that the blood of early Irish kings flows in their veins. At least 2 percent of the time, they are telling the truth, according to a new genetic survey. Descendants of King Niall of the Nine Hostages The survey not only bolsters the bragging rights of some Irishmen claiming a proud heritage but also provides evidence of the existence of Niall of the Nine Hostages, an Irish high king of the fifth century A.D. regarded by some historians as more legend than real. The survey shows that 20 percent of men in northwestern Ireland carry a distinctive genetic signature on their Y chromosomes, possibly inherited from Niall, who was said to have had numerous sons, or some other leader in a position to have had many descendants. About one in 50 New Yorkers of European origin - including men with names like O'Connor, Flynn, Egan, Hynes, O'Reilly and Quinn - carry the genetic signature linked with Niall and northwestern Ireland, writes Daniel Bradley, the geneticist who conducted the survey with colleagues at Trinity College in Dublin. He arrived at that estimate after surveying the Y chromosomes in a genetic database that included New Yorkers.
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, Calif. - Spiders, centipedes and scorpion-like critters are among the 27 new animal species that biologists have discovered in the dark, damp caves coursing through two southern Sierra Nevada national parks.``Not only are these animals new to science, but they're adapted to very specific environments -- some of them, to a single room in one cave,'' said Joel Despain, a cave specialist who helped explore 30 of the 238 known caves in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks.While it's extremely rare to find new mammal or bird species on the surface, caves still hold an abundance of secrets. Comparable to the deep sea, they're often difficult to reach and seldom explored, so the likelihood of finding an unknown creature in their folds is much greater, said Darrell Ubick, a cave biologist with the San Francisco-based California Academy of Sciences.
A three-week experiment to resolve the biggest riddle in climate science begins in Australia on Thursday. Scientists will use radar, aeroplanes, weather balloons and a ship to study the life cycle of tropical clouds. They are searching for details of how clouds form and carry heat high up into the atmosphere. A better understanding of these crucial processes should lead to computer models that can predict the extent of global climate warming more accurately.
Bjorn CareyLiveScience Staff WriterWhile high school freshmen sometimes struggle with parallelograms and the Pythagorean rule, people deep in the Amazon quickly grasp some basic concepts of geometry.Although these indigenous tribes had never seen a protractor, compass, or even a ruler, a new study found they understood parallelism and right angles and can use distance, angles, and other relationships in maps to locate hidden objects.The finding suggests all humans, regardless of language or schooling, possess a core set of geometrical intuitions.
A $12 billion project to construct three canals and divert 44 billion cubic metres of water threatens massive destruction. LONDON. China is mounting a massive operation to rescue cultural relics from hundreds of archaeological sites threatened by the South-North Water Diversion project, a hugely ambitious 100 billion yuan ($12.4 billion) scheme to divert 44 billion cubic metres of water from the Yangtze River every year to the arid northern provinces along three canals running through the eastern, central, and western parts of the country. Each of the canals is over 750 miles in length. So great is the urgency of the rescue mission that almost all other archaeological activities in China have been suspended so that archaeologists from across the country can concentrate on the sites in the path of the canals. The project was first proposed in the late 1950s, when construction began on the Danjiangkou Reservoir on the Haijiang river, a tributary of the Yangtze in Hubei province. Finally filled in 1974, this caused considerable damage to many cultural heritage sites, little publicised at the time. The scheme was revived in 2002, and it is now expected that the eastern canal will start carrying water to the Shandong Province in 2007, while the central canal running from Danjiangkou to Beijing, is set to open in 2010.
If all nations were to use the same services enjoyed in developed nations, even the full extraction of metals from the Earth's crust and extensive recycling may not be enough to meet metal demands in the future, according to a new study.To investigate the environmental and social consequences of metal depletion, researchers looked at metal stocks thought to exist in the Earth, metal in use by people today, and how much is lost in landfills.Using copper stocks in North America as a starting point, the researchers tracked the evolution of copper mining, use and loss during the 20th century. They then combined this information with other data to estimate what the global demand for copper and other metals would be if all nations were fully developed and using modern technologies.
Your ability to hear relies on a structure that got its start as a gill opening in fish, a new study reveals.Humans and other land animals have special bones in their ears that are crucial to hearing. Ancient fish used similar structures to breathe underwater.Scientists had thought the evolutionary change occurred after animals had established themselves on land, but a new look at an old fossil suggests ear development was set into motion before any creatures crawled out of the water.Researchers examined the ear bones of a close cousin of the first land animals, a 370-million-year-old fossil fish called Panderichthys. They compared these structures to those of another lobe-finned fish and to an early land animal and determined that Panderichthys displays a transitional form.
The 16-18ft (5m) northern bottle-nosed whale, which is usually found in deep sea waters, has been seen as far upstream as Chelsea. A rescue boat has been sent to protect the whale and rescuers have been trying to keep it away from the river banks. Specialist equipment, including inflatable tubes to re-direct the animal downstream, are being sent. The whale has come within yards of the banks and has crashed into an empty boat causing slight bleeding.
Fossil hunters were urged yesterday to keep away from the Jurassic Coast in Dorset after the biggest landslide for 30 years exposed treasures dating back 190m years.A massive cliff fall at the weekend exposed prehistoric fossils as about 750,000 tonnes of mud and clay tumbled on to the beach at Charmouth, near Lyme Regis. Scores of people have flocked to the site in search of souvenirs.Some enthusiasts were up early yesterday, right, to pore over the bonanza.Local authorities have now cordoned off the section of beach, and warned enthusiasts not to put their lives at risk. More landslips are expected, and the great volume of mud that was said to have flowed down the cliff "like lava" has the consistency of quicksand. Two eight-year-old brothers had to be freed by coastguards at the weekend when they sank in it up to their chests.
(ANSA) - Agrigento, January 17 - Archaeologists working in Sicily's Valley of the Temples have found traces of a settlement thought to pre-date the famous Greek temples built there in around 600 BC.The valley near Agrigento on Sicily's southern coast is one of Europe's most important archeological sites. It marks a sacred area built when Greeks landed there to start the civilisation of Magna Grecia in southern Italy.The discovery of a structure possibly built before the Greeks arrived came during preparatory work ahead of a project to shore up the ground near the Temple of Hera. Archaeologists uncovered a mysterious walled structure on top of which ancient Greeks had apparently built a shrine and a burial ground.
BEIJING, Jan. 17 (Xinhuanet) -- A relics site, dating back about 10,000 years, offers new clues about the development of people living in northern China in the early Neolithic period. The excavation of Donghulin Site, located in Zhaitang Town, Mentougou District, in the western suburbs of Beijing, fills the archaeological gap after the discovery of the Upper Cave Man, a type of primitive man who lived in the late Old Stone Age about 20,000 years ago and whose fossil remains were found in 1933 at Zhoukoudian in western Beijing. The Donghulin Site was excavated by archaeologists from Beijing University and the Institute of Archaeology of Beijing. An ancient tomb and remains of houses have been found at the site, said Zhao Chaohong, a professor with Beijing University Archaeologists have unearthed many stone instruments, earthenware, boneware, as well as a large number of bones from deer, pigs and other animals, Zhao said.
For many, the iconic image of Benjamin Franklin involves a kite, key, and bolt of lightning. Today, on the 300th anniversary of his birth, the statesman is celebrated as much for his scientific achievements as for the signature on the Declaration of Independence in 1776.A keen observer of nature throughout his life, Franklin by the age of 42 had amassed enough personal wealth from his printing business that he was able to retire and pursue his love of scientific research full time. Franklin would prove himself as one of early America's greatest and most prolific minds, famously inventing the lightning rod, the odometer, and bifocal glasses, among other things. According to most historians, it was this dedication to improving the overall quality of life with practical invention that is his lasting legacy.
ANSA) - Amelia, January 18 - Part of a massive wall started in around 600 BC around the central Italian town of Amelia collapsed on Wednesday morning for reasons still unclear.The so-called Polygonal walls around Amelia are famous not only for their age but also their size. Built out of huge polygonal stones, they are 8-10 metres high and about 3.5 metres thick.The 20-metre section of wall which collapsed was undergoing restoration work in recent weeks although activity had been suspended for a few days because of bad weather.Central Italy recorded record rainfall in December, a fact which experts are taking into account as they study the broken section.
A Japanese researcher has recently excavated a large relief depicting two jaguars from the ruins of a Peruvian temple built in about 750 B.C., The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned. The relief is 2.8 meters high and is in a temple in the Huaca Partida ruins in northern Peru. "It's the largest known relief dating from this ancient Andean civilization to show animals," said Koichiro Shibata, a researcher at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, who conducted the excavation. The relief is a major discovery that might help solve the mystery surrounding the dawn of the Andean civilization.
The planned publication of a "forbidden" Gospel of Judas is set to reawaken a centuries-old controversy over the man who betrayed Jesus. A Swiss foundation and National Geographic magazine are to publish translations of the ancient Coptic text discovered in Egypt in the 1970s. Although the full details have not yet been made public, snippets discussed in academic circles say it will prove Judas was acting at the behest of God when he sold Jesus to the Romans for 30 pieces of silver. Its publication will raise fears among traditionalists that efforts may be made to rehabilitate a man whose name is synonymous with betrayal.
MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico plans to press Austria once again to return a centuries old bejewelled feather headdress now in an Austrian museum, Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said on Thursday."It is an archaeological piece of incalculable value for the history of our nation," said Derbez at a news conference.President Vicente Fox will personally ask for its return at a summit of Latin American and European leaders in Vienna in May if there is no progress before then."If we are still without results at the time of the May meeting in Austria, we will reiterate via the president our request to the government that this be resolved," Derbez said.
Spanish investigators believe they may have found proof that neanderthal man reached Europe from Africa not just via the Middle East but by sailing, swimming or floating across the Strait of Gibraltar.Prehistoric remains of hunter-gatherer communities found at a site known as La Cabililla de Benzú, in the Spanish north African enclave of Ceuta, are remarkably similar to those found in southern Spain, investigators said. Stone tools at the site correspond to the middle palaeolithic period, when neanderthal man emerged, and resemble those found across Spain.This could break the paradigm of most investigators, who have refused to believe in any contact in the palaeolithic era between southern Europe and northern Africa," investigator José Ramos explained in the University of Cadiz's research journal.
Madrid - Spanish scientists are to test the DNA of hundreds of Catalans with the surname Colom to determine whether Christopher Columbus, far from the Italian gentleman he has long been believed to be, was in fact a pirate born in Catalonia. The experiment, in determining whether any of the participants are related to the pioneering explorer, is designed to clarify the disputed origins of the man who made landfall in America in 1492. While historians have mostly assumed that Columbus was an Italian born in 1451 in Genoa, a persuasive counter-lobby argues that the mariner who pioneered the Spanish conquista was in reality the Catalan Cristofol Colom, who airbrushed his past to conceal his activities as a pirate and conspirator against the king.
A new look at the DNA of the Ashkenazi Jewish population has thrown light on its still mysterious origins. Until now, it had been widely assumed by geneticists that the Ashkenazi communities of Northern and Central Europe were founded by men who came from the Middle East, perhaps as traders, and by the women from each local population whom they took as wives and converted to Judaism. But the new study, published online this week in The American Journal of Human Genetics, suggests that the men and their wives migrated to Europe together.
BEIJING, Jan. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- A well-preserved ancient village of 636-year history was discovered in the central part of Southwest China's Guizhou Province recently. The village, named Baojiatun, was located in Anshun city, 75 kilometers away from the provincial capital Guiyang and 60 kilometers away from China's largest Huangguoshu waterfall. Bao Shixing, a noted Chinese expert specific on urban planning, told Xinhua Friday that the village has been proved a legacy of the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), and it still preserves ancient architectures and dresses of that period. According to Bao, the village was older than the two ancient villages discovered in the southern part of east China's Anhui province, the Xidi village and Hong village.
From Scott CorralesInexplicata - The Journal Of Hispanic UfologyNoticiasdot.comThe Vatican Archives, one of the world's most important historical research centers, with over 630 different archival sources extending over more than 85 kilometers of shelves, covering over 800 yeras of history, can now be visited on the Internet at www.vatican.vaAfter selecting the language, the page offers a virtual tour among frescoes and documents in its "Focus" section, although the language selection is currently limited to English and Italian only. The oldest document dates back to the 7th century, while uninterrupted documentation is maintained from the year 1198 onward. Thanks to new technology, it is possible to leaf through the parchment in which Pope Clement grants absolution to the leaders of the Knights Templar (17-20 August, 1308), Michelangelo Buonarotti's letter to the Bishop of Cesena (January 1550) or the minutes of the trial of Galileo Galilei (1616-1633).
A plan to build a motorway beside the hill where ancient Celtic kings were crowned has been challenged in court as campaigners fight to save a monument described by W B Yeats as the "most consecrated spot in Ireland".The Irish government's proposal to build a new commuter route for Dublin through the valley containing the Hill of Tara has infuriated archaeologists, historians and conservationists.The battle, which has been depicted as a conflict between Ireland's mystical past and the materialistic modern nation of the Celtic Tiger, yesterday came to the High Court in Dublin.
The solar system beyond Neptune is a dark and mysterious place. It is also crowded. Besides Pluto and its moon Charon, there are planetesque chunks of rock and ice like Sedna and the recently discovered 2003UB313 as well as a host of asteroids and comets in the Kuiper belt and beyond. Determining which of these objects constitute new planets and which do not remains controversial work currently under review by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Some astronomers have even argued that Charon deserves to share the planet title since it is roughly half the ninth planet's size and might have a similar atmosphere.But new observations, reported today in Nature by Amanda Gulbis of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her colleagues prove that Charon lacks an atmosphere and therefore lacks one potential criterion for planet status. "I think having an atmosphere is a key component," Gulbis says. "Our findings show that it doesn't have an atmosphere. I would say that Charon is definitely not a planet."
A scientist who found deep grooves chiselled into the teeth of dozens of 1,000-year-old Viking skeletons unearthed in Sweden believes the strange custom might have been learned from aboriginal tribes during ancient Norse voyages to North America -- a finding that would represent an unprecedented case of transatlantic, cross-cultural exchange during the age of Leif Ericsson. The marks are believed to be decorations meant to enhance a man's appearance, or badges of honour for a group of great warriors or successful tradesmen. They are the first historical examples of ceremonial dental modification ever found in Europe, and although similar customs were practised in Asia and Africa over the centuries, the Swedish anthropologist who studied the Viking teeth is exploring the possibility that trips to Newfoundland and other parts of the New World a millennium ago introduced the Norsemen to tooth-carving styles being carried out at that time in the Americas. "The cases from the North American continent are from the time period," Caroline Arcini, a researcher with the National Heritage Board in Lund, Sweden, told CanWest News Service. "So it is within the same timespace as the Swedish ones that are dated from 800-1050 A.D."
Using new machinery, researchers have drilled holes narrower than a human hair in stainless steel and other materials. They say the holes are likely the smallest ever made by humans.The effort is geared toward future uses in electronics and medicine."The holes we are now drilling in Cardiff with the electro-discharge machining (EDM) process could be the smallest in the world," marketing director Frank Marsh of the Manufacturing Engineering Center at Cardiff University in the UK.The holes are as small as 22 microns in diameter, or 0.022 millimeters. Human hairs range from 50 to 80 microns wide. Laser technology had previously made holes down to 150 microns.
The ancient story of the Archangel Michael, whose legendary apparition influenced the cultural evolution and spread of Christianity throughout Europe, may be linked to earthquake activity in Southern Italy, according to a new study. The study, published in a recent issue of the journal Tectonophysics, suggests that many early legends were rooted in natural phenomena, such as geological events. The study's author, Luigi Piccardi, has made similar determinations concerning stories about the oracle at Delphi and the Loch Ness monster. According to legend, the Archangel Michael descended into the ground at Monte Sant'Angelo near the Adriatic Sea, and he temporarily dwelled in a sacred cave there.
THE endocast of a primitive hominid-like skull was recovered from among the rubble of a volcanic plug in the Bega district in May 2005
The find could suggest that a race of ancestral hominids had evolved in Australia from tree-dwelling primate ancestors by seven million years ago. This is well before our primate ancestors supposedly left the trees for a terrestrial existence in Africa around six million years ago! The fossil was discovered by noted prehistory researcher Rex Gilroy of Katoomba NSW, where he operates the 'Australian-Pacific Archaeological Research Centre'. He discovered the fossil projecting from the base of a volcanic deposit while researching volcanic sites on the NSW far south coast. The fossil, a chance discovery, further supports Rex Gilroy's belief that our Aboriginal people were preceded on this continent by earlier races, principally Homo erectus.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) -- An American researcher said Thursday his investigation into the death nearly 2 million years ago of an ape-man shows human ancestors were hunted by birds."These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world they lived in and the things they feared," Lee Berger, a paleo-anthropologist at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, said as he presented his conclusions about a mystery that has been debated since the remains of the possible human ancestor known as the Taung child were discovered in 1924.The Taung child's discovery led to the search for human origins in Africa, instead of in Asia or Europe as once theorized. Researchers regard the fossil of the ape-man, or australopethicus africanus, as evidence of the "missing link" in human evolution.
Climate modelers at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) have succeeded in reproducing the climate changes caused by a massive freshwater pulse into the North Atlantic that occurred at the beginning of the current warm period 8,000 years ago. Their work is the first to consistently model the event and the first time that the model results have been validated by comparison to the record of climate proxies that scientists regularly use to study the Earth's past. "We only have one example of how the climate reacts to changes, the past," said Gavin A. Schmidt, a GISS researcher and co-author on the study. "If we're going to accurately simulate the Earth's future, we need to be able to replicate past events. This was a real test of the model's skill." The study was led by Allegra LeGrande, a graduate student in the department of earth and environmental sciences at Columbia University. The results appear in a paper being published in this week's edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British researchers said on Wednesday they had uncovered the first proof of teaching in non-human animals -- ants showing each other the way to food.The ants studied over two years by scientists from Bristol University used a technique known as tandem running -- one ant led another ant from the nest to a food source.It was a genuine case of teaching as ant leaders observed by Professor Nigel Franks and Tom Richardson slowed down if the follower got too far behind. If the gap got smaller, they then speeded up.
They built more pyramids than the Egyptians, invented the world's first "rock" music, and were as bloodthirsty as the Aztecs when it came to human sacrifices.Yet ever since their demise at the hands of a vengeful pharaoh, the pre-Christian civilisations of ancient Sudan have been overshadowed by their Egyptian northern neighbours. Now, the race is on to excavate black Africa's first great kingdoms - before some of their heartlands are submerged for ever.In a highly controversial move, the Sudanese government is planning to flood a vast stretch of the southern Nile valley as part of plans for a big hydro-electric dam at Merowe, near what was once the ancient city of Napata.
More than 4,220 cliff tombs have been spotted at 680 sites in Shangluo, a city in western China's Shaanxi Province, local archaeologists said Monday. The cliff tombs have large spaces and various conformations and are scattered at a 160-km-long belt joining DanJiang Valley in the east and the Qianyou River in the west, said scientists with the provincial archeological research institute. According to Yang Yachang, a researcher with the institute, most of the single-room tombs are erect stone caves in rectangle shapes and are three meters deep, while the multi-room tombs are flat and carved with kitchen ranges, wells, toilets and shrines.
The underwater site, off Bouldnor, is the only one yet discovered in Britain and dates from when the sea level was 12 metres lower than today, when the IW would have been much larger and The Solent was a dry coastal valley.It remains because it was covered in silt and protected from erosion as the sea rose above it. Most Stone Age sites on land have lost all associated organic remains, having been exposed to weathering. However, underwater, the oxygen-free mud can preserve delicate objects for thousands of years.Unfortunately, this is being eroded by the currents and is likely to be gone within two to three years. Radiocarbon dating has underlined the international significance of the ancient drowned landscape and given archaeologists further tantalising evidence of human occupation.
A planet forming disk located about 375 light-years from Earth has been found to contain some of the building blocks of life: acetylene and hydrogen cyanide. The chemicals were discovered around "IRS 46" using NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope. When mixed with water in a laboratory, these chemicals create a soup of organic compounds, including amino acids and a DNA base called adenine. (Universe Today).Astronomers at W. M. Keck Observatory have found - for the first time - some of the basic compounds necessary to build organic molecules and one of the bases found in DNA within the inner regions of a planet-forming disk. The object, known as "IRS 46," is located in the Milky Way galaxy, about 375 light years from Earth, in the constellation Ophiuchus. The results will be published in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters."We see prebiotic organic molecules in comets and the gas giant planets in our own solar system and wonder, where did these chemicals come from?" said Dr. Marc Kassis, support astronomer at the W. M. Keck Observatory. "The Spitzer Space Telescope is letting us study these young stellar objects in new and revealing ways, giving us exciting clues about where life may form in the universe."
Two Neandertal fossils excavated from Vindija Cave in Croatia in 1998, believed to be the last surviving Neandertals, may be 3,000-4,000 years older than originally thought.The resultant ages are between 32,000 and 33,000 years ago, and perhaps slightly older. In 1998, the fossils had been radiocarbon dated to 28,000-29,000 years ago. Since that time, the increasing application of direct radiocarbon dating to late Neandertal and early modern human fossils in Europe has greatly altered perceptions of the chronological relationships between Neandertals and modern humans during the time that the latter spread westward across Europe.
Poking through some of the innermost rubble of an ancient pyramid known as Las Pinturas in San Bartolo, Guatemala, graduate student Boris Beltrán uncovered a boulder-size chunk of plaster. Mayan builders had created the boulder when constructing the third version of Las Pinturas, following their practice of supporting subsequent structures with the ruined remnants of the preceding pyramid. This particular fragment happened to be part of an ancient mural and thick black hieroglyphics ran down its side, following a faint pinkish-orange guideline. "When he showed it to me, I asked him: 'Do you know what you have there?'" recalls team leader William Saturno of the University of New Hampshire. "'That is likely the earliest text in the Maya era. It is likely among the earliest texts in the New World as a whole.'"
ATHENS, Greece -- British and Greek archaeologists are preparing a major excavation on a tiny Greek island to try to explain why it produced history's largest collection of Cycladic flat-faced marble figurines.Artwork from barren Keros inspired such artists as Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore but also attracted ruthless looters. Now experts are seeking insight into the island's possible role as a major religious center of the enigmatic Cycladic civilization some 4,500 years ago.Excavations will run April through June.
WHETHER their intricate designs are maps, religious symbols or simply an early form of graffiti, Stone Age rock carvings are seen as invaluable to unlocking secrets of civilisations dating back 4,000 years.Archaeologists have become fascinated with the work of prehistoric sculptors, studying the mysterious carvings created with flint tools which have survived the passage of time throughout the intervening centuries.And the North York Moors has emerged as a hidden gem for the phenomenon of rock art after a painstaking investigation spanning a decade has unearthed hundreds of examples buried under heather and gorse across the bleak landscape.Rock art researchers Paul Brown and Graeme Chappell have compiled the most comprehensive study yet of the artistry which they have discovered across the moors and published their findings in a book, Prehistoric Rock Art in the North York Moors.
In an obscure corner of the Uzbek capital, Tashkent, lies one of Islam's most sacred relics - the world's oldest Koran. It is a reminder of the role which Central Asia once played in Muslim history - a fact often overlooked after seven decades of Soviet-imposed atheism. The library where the Koran is kept is in an area of old Tashkent known as Hast-Imam, well off the beaten track for most visitors to this city.
Scientists have discovered the "beautifully preserved" bones of about 20 dodos at a dig site in Mauritius. Little is known about the dodo, a famous flightless bird thought to have become extinct in the 17th Century. No complete skeleton has ever been found in Mauritius, and the last full set of bones was destroyed in a fire at a museum in Oxford, England, in 1755. Researchers believe the bones are at least 2,000 years old, and hope to learn more about how dodos lived.
Archaeologists have unveiled two Iron Age "bog bodies" which were found in the Republic of Ireland.
The bodies, which are both male and have been dated to more than 2,000 years old, probably belong to the victims of a ritual sacrifice. In common with other bog bodies, they show signs of having been tortured before their deaths.Details of the finds are outlined in a BBC Timewatch documentary to be screened on 20 January.
Berlin - Egyptian treasures from the Pharaohs' port of Herakleion, recovered after lying under the sea for centuries, will go on public show for the first time in the German capital in May, it was announced on Friday.The exhibition, titled Egypt's Sunken Treasures, will open at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin on May 13 for a four-month run.French explorer Franck Goddio and his team began operations to raise the remains of ships and statues from the seabed at the present-day Abu Qir bay in Alexandria in the mid-1990s.The artefacts come from the lost city of Herakleion and parts of the city of Canopus.
Predictions early in 2005 that the year would be the warmest on record turned out to be off the mark. A new study finds last year tied for the second-warmest year since reliable records have been kept starting in the late 1800s. The global average temperature in 2005 was 0.54 degrees Fahrenheit (0.3 Celsius) warmer than the long-term average, tying a mark set in 2002. But a puzzling general pattern, seen the past three decades, persisted: The most significant warming occurred in the Arctic, where the ice cap is shrinking at an alarming pace.
The exact locations of Tyre and Sidon's ancient harbors, Phoenicia's two most important city-states, have attracted scholarly interest and debate for many centuries. New research reveals that the ancient basins lie buried beneath the medieval and modern city centers. A network of sediment cores have been sunk into the cities' coastal deposits and studied using high-resolution geoscience techniques to elucidate how, where, and when Tyre and Sidon's harbors evolved since their Bronze Age foundations. In effect, ancient port basins are rich geological archives replete with information on human impacts, occupation histories, Holocene coastal evolution, and natural catastrophes.
LIMA, Peru - In the Peru's Andean foothills, a group of archaeologists say they have found remnants of the oldest known irrigation canals in South America, which they hope will provide clues to the origin of the region's agriculturally based societies. "There are four sites in the area that have canals that date minimally 5,300 years ago, maybe a little earlier," team leader Tom D. Dillehay, an archaeologist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, told The Associated Press
PARIS (AFP) - Analysis of stencilled handprints found on the walls of an Indonesian cave suggest that prehistoric men and women chose not to mix genders when it came to this enigmatic art form.Experts from France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) looked at handprints left at the Gua Masri II cave in Indonesia, using a new computer model to determine whether the hand which made the mark was male or female.They found that the male cave dwellers grouped their handprints in given locations and the females put their own handprints in their own areas.
KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- Researchers at a Missouri university have identified the largest known prime number, officials said Tuesday. The team at Central Missouri State University, led by associate dean Steven Boone and mathematics professor Curtis Cooper, found it in mid-December after programming 700 computers years ago. A prime number is a positive number divisible by only itself and 1 -- 2, 3, 5, 7 and so on. The number that the team found is 9.1 million digits long. It is a Mersenne prime known as M30402457 -- that's 2 to the 30,402,457th power minus 1.
ANTIGUA, Guatemala (Reuters) -- Archaeologists excavating a pyramid complex in the Guatemalan jungle have uncovered the earliest example of Mayan writing ever found, 10 bold hieroglyphs painted on plaster and stone.The 2,300-year-old glyphs were excavated last April in San Bartolo and suggest the ancient Maya developed an advanced writing system centuries earlier than previously believed, according to an article published Thursday in the journal Science.The glyphs date from between 200 B.C. and 300 B.C., and come from the same site in the Peten jungle of northern Guatemala where archaeologist William Saturno found the oldest murals in the Mayan world in 2001. Radiocarbon tests indicate the writing is 100 years older than the murals depicting the Mayan creation myth. CNN News article hereSee also Yahoo News article:Earliest known Mayan writing found in Guatemala
Nasa scientists have witnessed a rare explosion on the Moon, caused by a meteoroid slamming into it. The blast was equal in energy to about 70kg of TNT and was seen near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains). The object that hit the Moon was probably part of a shower of "taurids" which peppered Earth in late October and early November. Understanding lunar impacts could help protect astronauts when Nasa sends humans back to the Moon.
Relics found in ancient burial pits last month have been hailed as among the greatest archaeological finds of 2005. Articles unearthed from the site in Hancheng city in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province date back to the Zhou Dynasty of about 3,000 years ago. They include more than 600 items of bronzeware, as well as rare gold items and lacquer ware, according to Shaanxi archaeological sources. Excavation leaders said they will resume the search in February after the Spring Festival and hope to make further discoveries. "The findings so far may help rewrite historical records," said Jiao Nanfeng, director of Shaanxi Archaeology Research Institute. He told China Daily the finds were the most important archaeological event in Shaanxi and one of the most significant throughout the whole country in 2005.
MÉRIDA, Yucatán.- Archeologists discovered a 2,500-year-old court used for the ball game that played a central role in the religion and royal ceremonies of the Mayas. Fernando Acevedo and Donato Martín España, researchers with the National Institute of Anthropology and History, said the court is 25 meters long (82 feet) and 4.5 meters (15 feet) wide and lies about 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) from Mérida. The discovery took place in the course of excavation for a housing development, whose plan will now have to be modified, said the top land-use official in Yucatán state, José Carlos Guzmán Alcocer.
In the Andean foothills of Peru, not far from the Pacific coast, archaeologists have found what they say is evidence for the earliest known irrigated agriculture in the Americas.An analysis of four derelict canals, filled with silt and buried deep under sediments, showed that they were used to water cultivated fields 5,400 years ago, in one case possibly as early as 6,700 years ago, archaeologists reported in a recent issue of The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Other scholars hailed the discovery as adding a new dimension to understanding the origins of civilization in the Andes. The canals are seen as the long-sought proof that irrigation technology was critical to the development of the earliest Peruvian civilization, one of the few major cultures in the ancient world to rise independent of outside influence.
JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists, screening tons of rubble scooped out of this ancient city's sacred Temple Mount, have discovered hundreds of artifacts and coins, as well as jewelry, some with biblical links dating back more than three millennia. Most of the stones and earth originally were taken to an organic garbage dump in nearby Bethany, the New Testament town known in Arabic as Al-Azariya, and could not be retrieved. But a substantial portion was diverted to the Valley of Kidron, mentioned in the Old Testament and located just outside the Old City's massive walls. This ambitious archaeological project, known as the Temple Mount Antiquities Operation, was started in November 2004, when Muslims excavated the sector north of Solomon's Stables to build the massive underground Marwani Mosque. Its second season, now under way, will last until February
Burrowing moles have led archaeologists to the discovery of a grand Romano-British villa. Researchers found farm buildings and an ornate bath house while investigating mosaic tiles brought to the surface by a colony of Cotswold moles. They were particularly surprised to find the 3rd or 4th century settlement because it is only 300 yards from another sizeable villa from the same period. It is highly unusual for two to be so close together.Experts working for Channel 4's Time Team programme made the discoveries after Roger Box, a former forensic archaeologist, tipped them off about the Roman mosaic tiles in a field at the end of his garden.
Gary Lachman enjoys Graham Hancock's psychedelic detective story about the study of the mindGraham Hancock is well known for books such as The Sign of the Seal and Fingerprints of the Gods, which set out to challenge conventional ideas of history and archaeology by recourse to "hidden" truths. Here, he asks a simple question: what made us human? As much as 196,000 years ago - perhaps even earlier - humans had achieved "full anatomical modernity", but it was only 100,000 years later that we began to display the symbolic activity associated with fully human behaviour. Even then, the products were minimal. In southern Africa, delicate bone implements from that time have been discovered...
Chinese ancients living 3,500 to 4,500 years ago already had many choices for meal, including millet, wheat and rice, which are still the staple food of the Chinese. They also compiled calendars according to their astronomical observation, which is regarded as one of the symbols of the origin of civilization.They made exquisite bronze vessels to hold wine and food, and some of the bronze vessels were later developed into symbol of the supreme imperial power.
Chinese researchers have found ancient buildings similar to Mayan pyramids under Fuxian Lake in southern China¡¯s Yunnan province. Gengwei, a professional diver, told reporters on December 19th, 2005, that images from sonar scans showed that a large relic covering at least 2.4 square kilometers sits underwater in Fuxian Lake. He said eight main buildings were found all under the water, including a round building and two large high buildings with floors that liken to the Mayan pyramids of Latin America. The round one is similar to a colosseum in form, with a 37 meter wide base and a gap to the northeast.
Argentine paleontologists have discovered the largely intact skeleton of a young titanosaurus that lived 71 million years ago. "What's extraordinary about this is that the remains were articulated, as if the animal had fallen or lain down and remained that way. There were no signs that it was preyed on," local media reported geologist and paleontologist Bernardo Gonzalez Riga as saying.Scientists discovered the remains of a foot "with all its toes and claws in an exceptional state of preservation," as well as the complete rear bones, tail, "and part of the pelvis," Gonzalez said.Such finds are rare, said Gonzalez, adding that there are only one or two titanosauruses in the world with complete feet.
Winston Churchill would have sought Adolf Hitler's execution by electric chair, newly released papers show. Britain's war-time leader also believed top Nazis should be summarily executed without being tried, the papers reveal.Churchill described the Nazi leader as "the mainspring of evil", adding that he deserved the instrument used "for gangsters" - the electric chair. The revelations come in the first detailed records of World War II Cabinet meetings to be published.
A podcast from Science Magazine - www.sciencemag.orgThis special Science podcast covers some of the 2005 Breakthrough of the Year runners-up and touches on other stories in this issue. Download and listen to the 18 minute 'Top ten scientific accompishments' podcast [MP3 file, 7.6 MB]
Many ancient Egyptians marked the first month of the New Year by singing, dancing and drinking red beer until they passed out, according to archaeologists who have unearthed new evidence of a ritual known as the Festival of Drunkenness. During ongoing excavations at a temple precinct in Luxor that is dedicated to the goddess Mut, the archaeologists recently found a sandstone column drum dating to 1470-1460 B.C. with writing that mentions the festival. The discovery suggests how some Egyptians over 3,000 years ago began their New Year, which for them started around the end of August to coincide with seasonal, desired flooding that drenched farmlands where they would grow crops, such as barley and wheat. The Festival of Drunkenness usually occurred 20 days after the first big flood.
About 3,000 years ago, a group of hunters perched on a ridge near what is now New Haven Harbor in Connecticut and fashioned quartz into projectile points. The points were likely intended to form the lethal end of an atlatl, or spear-thrower, dart. A skillful stalker could wield the weapon, which predated the bow and arrow, with enough force and accuracy to send a dart into a deer, turkey, or other small prey. Those ancient hunter-gatherers have since vanished, but the quartz artifacts survive on the ridge, known as West Rock.Michael J. Rogers, associate professor of anthropology at Southern Connecticut State University and his student, Nancy Parsons, have found almost 5,000 stone artifacts at the site, including several unfinished points and at least one unbroken dart point.The discovery reveals the importance of stone ridges to the hunter-gatherers of 3,000 to 4,000 years ago and adds details to the sparse knowledge of the Late Archaic period of North America.
Seven eunuch tombs belonging to the imperial Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) were unearthed in Chengdu, capital of southwestern China's Sichuan Province. The 400-year-old tombs yielded approximately 60 pieces of relics including porcelains, jade belts, jade hair decoration clasps and silver kettles. The tomb chambers are all some seven meters deep with stone tables for incense burners and bottles at the entrance. The tomb gates were equipped with a stone dragon head at each side and the walls were decorated with dragon patterns
Short stature didn't prevent dwarves in ancient Egyptian culture from attaining high positions in society. Some served as assistants to the pharaoh, while others were looked up to as godsAncient Egyptians Held Dwarves in High Esteem Chahira Kozma, a pediatrician at Georgetown University, examined remains and depictions of dwarves in ancient Egypt and concluded they were respected and that their disorder was not seen as a physical handicap.The study was detailed in a Dec. 27 online version of the American Journal of Medical Genetics.There are more than 100 known medical conditions that can lead to dwarfism. One of the most common is achondroplasia, a genetic disorder that affects approximately 1 in 30,000 children born each year.
Underwater generators based on wind energy technology could be up and running by 2010 to begin to supply residents of the United Kingdom with power equivalent to a nuclear power station.The TidalStream system is built to harness the power of deep, fast-flowing tidal waters. It's being developed by John Armstrong, former technical director of the Wind Energy Group at construction giant Taylor Woodrow, and Mike Todman, former chief engineer at Rolls Royce Marine.
This may be the prime time for dieting, but a survey suggests Britons are shunning trendy weight loss plans. A Marks and Spencer poll of 1,000 people found the number opting for balanced meals instead has risen by around a fifth in five years. In 2000, 50% claimed to eat well and one in five was on a diet, but now two thirds eat a balanced diet - and only 7% opt for strict dietary regimes. Dieticians welcomed the move away from faddy eating habits.
A Paleolithic jeweler's workshop that thrived 20,000 years ago recently was excavated in China, unearthing about 100 exquisitely polished and shaped ostrich eggshells, according to a Xinhua news report. While 16,000-year-old pottery has been found in China, the jewelry indicates artistry and beauty were appreciated along with practical function long before previously thought. The ostrich eggshells appear to have been used to make necklaces, as each piece of worked eggshell, less than a half an inch in diameter and only around .04 inches thick, has a .12-inch-wide hole in the center, according to researchers. Even after thousands of years, the objects retain their original yellow, ivory and red hues.
Archaeologists claim that an ancient lighthouse located in the ancient city of Patara on Antalya's Mediterranean coast might have been destroyed by a tsunami that hit the region in ancient times ........
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At a December 16 press conference cosponsored by the Shaanxi Provincial Culture Relics Bureau and the Hancheng City government, archaeologists announced the successful excavation of numerous and highly significant cultural relics from several ancient grave sites in Hancheng City, in northwestern China's Shaanxi Province. The relics date back approximately 2,800 years, from late western Zhou Dynasty (c. 1100 BC - c. 771 BC) to the early Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770 BC - 256 BC). At the press conference it was revealed that the tombs yielded four large-scale graves, with more than a dozen pits with representations of horses, chariots and many rare ceremonial wares in bronze, gold and jade. Archeologists theorize that the site is the grave of a state ruler who may have held some prominence during the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1100 BC - 221 BC).
PHILIP WILLIAMS: The destructive capacity of last year's tsunami wiped life from Earth in numbers that defy comprehension. Each one gone dramatically altering other lives - friends and families in a chain wrapped countless times around the world. Towns and villages and possessions obliterated. In many parts, the very presence of human beings simply erased, as if they were never there. The tsunamis took a great deal away, but in one tiny corner, they actually gave something back. And it has archaeologists and historians arguing about precisely what it is. It is evidence of a long-lost ancient community? Is there a mystical temple covered by time, or perhaps even an entire city buried beneath the sand and the sea around Mahabalipuram in southern India. Anne Maria Nicholson travelled to India to piece together a picture from the fleeting glimpses snatched between the tsunamis and the more structured exploration now under way. ANNE MARIA NICHOLSON: The sea's running high off Mahabalipuram on the Bay of Bengal. 75-year-old Peti Chetia and his grandson Sekdavail are out looking for their daily catch aboard shiny new boats donated by sympathetic Europeans. The ocean is their life, but a year ago it took nearly everything they had. But as stricken communities like this counted their losses and began a massive clean-up, others were diverted by an intriguing revelation. The ocean that had been so destructive offered a sneak peep into the past. Beneath the waves just offshore was evidence of submerged temples, perhaps even a city belonging to a lost civilisation.
A chance discovery during renovations of a building in this Atlantic port city has revealed a dark secret from Portugal's past: a 16th-century synagogue.
Built at a time when Portugal's Jews had been forced to convert to Catholicism or risk being burned at the stake, the house of worship was hidden behind a false wall in a four-story house that Father Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Roman Catholic priest, was converting into a home for his old-age parishioners. A scholar of Porto's Jewish history, he says that as soon as the workers told him of the wall, "I knew there had to be some kind of Jewish symbol behind it." His hunch was confirmed when the wall came down to reveal a carved granite repository, about five feet tall, arched at the top and facing east toward Jerusalem. It was the ark where the medieval Jews kept their Torah scrolls. Pieces of decorative green tiles in the ark further confirmed the age of the ark when experts dated their glazing to a method used in the 16th century.
NASA's Mars rovers mark their second anniversaries on the Red Planet in January, with little indication that they have lasted eight times longer than expected. On March 10, 2006, a new probe joins the Martian armada. When Spirit and Opportunity touched down in Gusav Crater on Jan. 3, 2003, and Meridiani Planum on Jan. 26, respectively, they joined a pair of orbiters, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey, already working to find signs of past water on the planet. Europe's Mars Express proved a welcome addition in December 2003, with its ground-penetrating radar that could peer beneath the planet's crust.
The prostrate figure burial of a young man were unearthed for the first time during the archeological excavations in the historical site of Burnt City which has surprised archaeologists who were faced with such a strange burial method. It seems that the young man died when he was lying prostrate on the floor some 5000 years ago in the Burnt City and was buried in the same position. Burnt City is one of the key historical sites of Iran. Some unique relics such as the animated figure of a goat on a clay barrel, which is believed to be the first animation work in the history of the world, and a very unique backgammon, which is also believed to be the oldest one in the world, have been discovered in this historical site during the archeological excavation.
NASA scientists have observed an explosion on the moon. The blast, equal in energy to about 70 kg of TNT, occurred near the edge of Mare Imbrium (the Sea of Rains) on Nov. 7, 2005, when a 12-centimeter-wide meteoroid slammed into the ground traveling 27 km/s. What a surprise," says Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) researcher Rob Suggs, who recorded the impact's flash. He and colleague Wes Swift were testing a new telescope and video camera they assembled to monitor the moon for meteor strikes. On their first night out, "we caught one," says Suggs.
SNOHOMISH - Archaeologists have discovered 96 locations believed to contain human remains at a pioneer cemetery site here, prompting the Tulalip Tribes to object to building a senior center on the site. "We don't know how many of them are Indian. That'll have to be determined by DNA and the courts," said Hank Gobin, the Tulalip's cultural resources director.The Tulalips want the remains left where they are.The tribe, which believed all of those buried at the parcel already had been moved, says it may challenge the senior center plan in court, Gobin said.
Few people ever knew, but the medieval alleys of the Portuguese city of Porto on the Atlantic coast once provided cover for a persecuted minority at risk of being burnt at the stake. In the 16th century, a thick-walled granite house that still stands in a row of narrow buildings along a cobbled street held a dangerous secret. At the back, steep steps lead down to a warren of alleys ideal for conspiratorial comings and goings that helped keep an outlawed religious ceremony hidden. Four centuries later, the secret of the synagogue is out. The mystery began unravelling when Fr Agostinho Jardim Moreira, a Catholic priest, bought the four-storey house for use as an old people's home for his parish. When construction workers told him they had come across a false wall, he told them to pull it down - sensing a hidden tale.
Chinese archaeologists unearthed five ancient human activity sites in eastern Saga and northwestern Qiongguo in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, among which, four belong to the Old Stone Age and date back 10,000 years. According to Meng Xianlai, director of China Geological Survey (CGS), apart from the five sites, ancient tomb groups, 350 pieces of rockwares and pottery shards were also discovered. Four of the five sites belong to the Old Stone Age dating back approximately 10,000 years and one site belongs to the New Stone Age dating back 5000-7000 years, said Meng. Since 1999, China Geological Survey has invested 300 million yuan organizing a research team for geology expedition in the unpopulated area of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
(CNN) -- A pair of newly released studies have challenged the theory that a salty sea once lapped the shores of Mars' Meridiani Planum. The search for water on Earth's barren neighbor is at the crux of the ongoing debate over the likelihood that life may have once existed on the red planet. In March 2004, NASA's Mars Exploration Rover team, led by principal investigator Steve Squyres, held a press conference to announce that the Opportunity Rover, which was then four months into a comprehensive study of bedrock formations at Meridiani, had discovered geological evidence that the area had once been covered by water. The team pointed to the presence of a type of sandstone that they believe was formed in the distant past when volcanic rocks were steeped in acidic, salty water that later evaporated. The announcement generated headlines at the time amid suggestions that such a sea could have been home to living organisms, perhaps similar to bacteria or other microbes here on Earth.
Scientists have cracked the genetic code of a fungus responsible for deadly infections and allergic reactions. Aspergillus fumigatus, which causes more infections than any other mould, is particularly dangerous to people with weakened immune systems. Researchers at the Institute for Genomic Research hope their work could lead to better diagnostic tests, and treatments for fungal infections. Their international collaboration is reported in the journal Nature.
When Egyptologists entered the tomb for the first time more than four decades ago, they expected to be surprised. Explorers of newly exposed tombs always expect that, and this time they were not disappointed - they were confounded. It was back in 1964, outside Cairo, near the famous Step Pyramid in the necropolis of Saqqara and a short drive from the Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza. The newfound tomb yielded no royal mummies or dazzling jewels. But the explorers stopped in their tracks when the light of their kerosene lamp shined on the wall art in the most sacred chamber. There, carved in stone, were the images of two men embracing. Their names were inscribed above: Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. Though not of the nobility, they were highly esteemed in the palace as the chief manicurists of the king, sometime from 2380 to 2320 B.C., in the time known as the fifth dynasty of the Old Kingdom. Grooming the king was an honored occupation. Archaeologists were taken aback. It was extremely rare in ancient Egypt for an elite tomb to be shared by two men of apparently equal standing. The usual practice was for such mortuary temples to be the resting place of one prominent man, his wife and children.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Hundreds of human footprints dating back 20,000 years to the Ice Age have been discovered in a dry lake bed in Australia, scientists said on Thursday. University of Melbourne archaeologist Matthew Cupper told Australian radio they were the earliest footprint fossils found in the country. "It's really quite a remarkable find. It's a little snapshot in time. The possibilities are endless in terms of getting a window into past aboriginal society." They were left by adults, teenagers and children walking or and running across moist clay flats near Willandra Lakes, southwest of Sydney, the university archaeologists who made the discovery said.
Goseck, Germany - A reconstructed 'temple of the sun' in Germany caught the morning rays of the sun through its eastern gate early Wednesday, just as it is believed to have done after it was built by a lost culture 6,800 years ago. Archaeologists say the 75-metre-diameter Goseck Circle, on a flat river plain in eastern Germany, was built to help Stone-Age priests discern the solstice, the point in the year when the days begin to become longer and farmers look forward to spring planting. The villagers of modern Goseck and visitors from all over Germany gathered at the site for its official opening, seven months after workmen began cutting 2,300 oak poles in a nearby forest and erecting them in two concentric circles at the site.
The top 11 feet of soil in the Arctic continues to thaw. Sinkholes are opening, highways buckling, houses and forests tilting, all of which is wreaking havoc on landscapes, wildlife and cities from Murmansk to Juneau. This permafrost layer--defined as soil that remains icy cold for more than two years--covers nearly a quarter of the land in the Northern Hemisphere. But that total is shrinking and new models show that it may nearly disappear by the end of this century. "Our model predicts that the area with permafrost in the top [11 feet] will fall sharply over the next century," explains climate change researcher David Lawrence of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. "Deeper permafrost, which can extend down [more than one mile] and which our model does not represent, will be largely unaffected by global warming." Lawrence and his colleague Andrew Slater of the University of Colorado developed a model that accounts for the effects of the atmosphere, land, ocean, sea ice and the soil itself. "People have used models to study permafrost before, but not within a fully interactive climate system model," Lawrence notes.