Newsdesk Archive

Europe's Mars Express probe may have found evidence for a band of ice that once spanned the Martian equator. A frozen sea and patterns of glacial activity on the planet may be a relic of this ancient belt of ice, says a top scientist. The ice may have formed just before five million years ago due to a change in the tilt of Mars.

Astronomers have discovered the fastest rotating object for its size in the Solar System. The Kuiper Belt Object 2003 EL61, discovered in July, rotates once every 3.9 hours. Rather than being spherical like Pluto, the object has a shape much like a squashed rugby ball, its discoverers say. Details of the work were presented at a scientific meeting in Cambridge, UK.

The discovery of a Mesolithic site at a Bletchingley farm is one of the most important archaeological finds in years. Horizontal rain and biting wind did nothing to dampen the excitement of the archaeologists at North Park, Bletchingley, as they guided a group of reporters around what appeared to be little more than a barren sandpit.Shrouded by hoods and umbrellas, eager faces told of the archaeologists' new finds that are providing vital clues about a relatively unknown age.

Tossing a handful of dirt on the two cast-iron coffins, the Rev. Michael Singer intoned the timeless words uttered at graveside services throughout Christendom: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." With that, two coffins containing the remains of two women were placed reverently back into the ground where they had resting for more than 150 years.The coffins were excavated in late July by a team of anthropologists, students and historians. Taken to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, forensic and anthropologic scientists examined and tested the remains. Both of bodies are those of women. Only one has been tentatively identified."We are reasonably sure one of the women is Louisa Caroline Hernandez Washington," Martha Mewborn Marble said. Marble, a former Kinston resident, along with Susan Burgess Hoffman, a five-times great-granddaughter of N.C. Gov. Richard Caswell, have pushed for the past four years to get the Smithsonian involved in this historic quest.

THE last Viking king was not laid to rest with his mother, contrary to the belief of historians for at least the last 500 years. Sven Estridsen died in 1074 and was buried in Roskilde cathedral on the Danish island of Sjaelland. His mother, Estrid, was supposedly buried nearby. Now an analysis of DNA from the royal teeth has revealed that "Estrid" is not his mother after all - she is more likely to have been his daughter-in-law.Jorgen Dissing, at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen, Denmark, extracted mitochondrial DNA from the pulp of molars from the skeletons. Mitochondrial DNA is useful for analysing ancient remains because there are many copies per cell so DNA breakdown causes fewer problems during analysis than it can in nuclear DNA samples.

The skeleton from about the 1st millennium BC is thought to be that of a young female. It was found recently in an open stone-lined grave as the archaeologists worked to re-open the blocked entrance to the High Pasture Cave. The discovery is extremely rare. Iron Age burial sites have been found in several locations on the east coast of Scotland, but this is among the few occurrences along the country's Atlantic seacoast and the first on Skye. "The discovery of the human remains at the High Pasture's site is a very important find and will provide a unique opportunity to study a wide range of aspects of Iron Age life and death in the region," said George Kozikowski, a member of the High Pasture Cave Project.

An unprecedented excavation was made in the southern part of the peninsula, where archaeologists unearthed a fishing boat believed to be the world's oldest, dating back to 6,000 B.C. A fishing boat, presumed to be 8000 years old, has been dug out of the ground at Changnyeong County in South Gyeongsang Province. Archaeologists believe the boat, made of pine trees, is the oldest of its kind ever discovered in the world. The Gimhae National Museum has been digging in this area since November last year.

In a latter-day version of Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition, a team of archaeologists will set sail from Oman for India in a small boat made of reeds, steering by the stars and sun with nothing but the wind to propel them. The voyage, set to begin next Wednesday, is an attempt to prove that an ancient trade route linked India, Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula 4000 years ago. The eight-man mission hopes to recreate the voyages of the ancient mariners of the region's Magan civilisations, proving it is possible to travel 500 nautical miles across the sea in a boat made with Bronze Age technology.

Fields of volcanic cones discovered at the North Pole of Mars suggest the Red Planet could still be geologically active, scientists have said. The cones, seen in images from Europe's Mars Express probe, have no blemishes from impact craters. This suggests the volcanoes erupted very recently and that the site could have ongoing volcanism. Mars Express scientist Gerhard Neukum presented the results at a conference in Cambridge.

An American explorer says an ancient, pre-Incan metropolis discovered by his father in Peru's remote cloud forest on an earlier expedition has been plundered by tomb robbers. Sean Savoy, 32, urged the government to take steps to protect the city, which he estimated housed 20,000 people and had hundreds of circular stone buildings in the 7th century."It is time for the government to take note. Something has to be done. These places are in danger of destruction," he said. Savoy, just back from leading a 23-day expedition to the site, described it as a massive metropolitan complex spread along a river valley high in Peru's rain forest on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian Andes.

The particles that make up Saturn's rings are more like "fluffy" snowballs than hard ice cubes, as some scientists had previously described them. And these grains have been found to be spinning more slowly than thought, according to new data from the US-European Cassini space probe. This is even the case in parts of the rings that are densely packed and where there should be many collisions. Details were presented at an American Astronomical Society meeting in the UK. "The ring particles, in our conclusion, are rotating slowly. This tells you something about the physical particles themselves," said Linda Spilker, deputy project scientist for the Cassini mission.

Scientists have found evidence that large amounts of water-ice hide within massive sand dunes on Mars. One of the dunes, which spans 6.5km and rises 475m above the Martian surface, may be the single largest sand dune in the entire Solar System. The icy dunes could be a valuable resource for any future manned missions to the planet, said Dr Mary Bourke. The researcher presented her results to a science conference in Dublin.

The destruction of tropical peatlands is contributing significantly to global warming, according to a study. Peatlands in South-East Asia are being burnt in fires started with the intention to clear forest, but in dry periods they can rage out of control.This can free vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, Dr Susan Page of Leicester University, UK, said. The peatlands, which contain up to 21% of global land-based stores of carbon, could be destroyed by 2040, she added.

Imagine a world where chocolate cake holds no temptation, where celery is an indulgence and food cravings float away in a balloon. Now open your eyes to the trancelike world of Americans who are turning to hypnosis to drop extra poundage. In a nation where two-thirds of the population is overweight or obese, some dieters are hoping hypnosis will finally break food's spell over them. Despite its hokey, magic-show aura, hypnosis is used as an alternative treatment in medical institutions to manage everything from pain to smoking to weight loss. And as waistlines continue to bulge, hypnotherapists say they're seeing more patients desperate for a way to control their eating.

Archaeologists who have been working on one of the UK's largest Bronze Age digs of the summer are set to reveal their discoveries on Thursday. Up to 100 people have been busy working the Allen Valley site in Dorset with archaeologists from Bournemouth University since early August. They are uncovering a series of ancient barrow cemeteries. The area has one of the densest concentrations of prehistoric monuments in north-west Europe.

In a latter-day version of Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition, a team of archaeologists is to set sail from Oman to India in a small boat made of reeds, steering by the stars and sun, with nothing but the wind to propel them. The voyage, set to begin on 7 September, is an attempt to prove that there was an ancient trade route linking India, Mesopotamia and the Arabian peninsula 4,000 years ago.The eight-man mission is hoping to re-create the voyages of the ancient mariners, proving that it is possible to travel 500 nautical miles across the sea in a boat made with Bronze Age technology.

An important archaeological discovery made in Israel could shed more light on the ancient culture of the Philistines, a seafaring people that left the area of Greece in about 1200 BCE and landed on Israel's shores. At a dig in late July at Tell es-Safi, a site approximately halfway between Jerusalem and Ashkelon, a young woman found a pottery shard inscribed with what appear to be ancient Hebrew letters, though it also records a Greek name. While the initial stage and later stage of Philistine settlements are well-represented in the field of archaeology, the middle stages - in which the Grecian Philistines began to assimilate with the local Semitic people and customs - remain more of a mystery. The find at Tell es-Safi may illuminate that intermediary period.

In February of 1961, three amateur gem collectors dug a mechanical gizmo encased in fossil-encrusted rock out of a mountainside in the Southern California desert. They didn't know what it was, and began showing it to friends and associates. Within a few years this thingummy, which became known as the Coso artifact, had assumed an almost mythic importance. It consisted of a cylinder of what seemed to be porcelain with a 2-millimeter shaft of bright metal in its center, enclosed by a hexagonal sheath composed of copper and another substance they couldn't identify. Yet its discoverers at first believed it had been found in a geode, a hardened mineral nodule at least 500,000 years old. If the Coso artifact was real -- that is, if it was really an example of unknown technology from many millennia before the accepted emergence of Homo sapiens, let alone the dawn of human history -- it would turn everything scientists thought they knew about the past of our species upside down.Read more of this article in which Graham Hancock participated being interviewed for.

The first cases of BSE or "mad cow disease" could have been caused by animal feed contaminated with human remains, says a controversial theory. Some raw materials for fertiliser and feed imported from South Asia in the 60s and 70s contained human bones and soft tissue, the Lancet reports. Bone collectors could have picked up the remains of corpses deposited in the Ganges river to sell for export. If infected with prion diseases, they could have been the source for BSE.

About 1 million scraps of broken porcelain, some of which may be up to 800 years old, were unearthed recently from an enormous pit in downtown Beijing, the Beijing Municipal Cultural Heritage Bureau announced yesterday. However, the discovery has raised some puzzling questions for archaeologists, such as the origins of the pit itself and the long-lost techniques used in making the porcelain, according to the Beijing Academy of Cultural Heritage Studies. "It is very rare that a single pit contains so many different types of porcelain, and that the pieces seem to have come from at least seven ancient kilns, such as the famous Jingdezhen, Junyao and Dehua Kilns," said Zhu Zhigang, the academy researcher who led the excavation.

New readings from the European satellite Envisat suggest that this year's southern hemisphere ozone hole may be one of the largest on record. The hole covers an area of 10 million sq km (four million sq miles) - approximately the same size as Europe. It is expected to continue expanding for two to three weeks. There have been signs over the last two years that damage to the ozone layer has reduced, but a full recovery is not expected until around 2050.

Archaeologists are to take to the skies above north Wales in hot air balloons in an attempt to spot long-lost ancient sites.Balloonists preparing for the weekend's Llangollen Balloon Festival will take archaeologists up in their craft to allow them to take aerial photographs. Many ancient sites can only be spotted from the air with slow-flying balloons ideal for landscape photography.

The discovery of 2,000-year-old bison bones in Illinois has contradicted theories that bison were more recent arrivals in the state. The bones of the American bison were discovered along the Illinois River south of Peoria.As many as 60 million bison -- often inaccurately referred to as buffalo -- roamed North America before being hunted to extinction during the 19th century.

Scientists have deciphered the DNA of the chimpanzee, the closest living relative of humankind, and made comprehensive comparisons with the human genetic blueprint. It's a step toward finding a biological answer to a key question: What makes us human? There are no firm answers yet about how humans picked up key traits such as walking upright and developing complex language. But the work has produced a long list of DNA differences with the chimp and some hints about which ones might be crucial.

Did Neanderthals and the first ancestors of modern man ever meet? The argument has raged among archaeologists and paleontologists for decades. Now a group of scientists claim to have proof -- based on radiocarbon dating of artefact finds in France -- that the two distinct groups did indeed share the same space at the same time some 38,000 years ago."These data strongly support the chronological coexistence -- and therefore potential demographic and cultural interactions -- between the last Neanderthal and the earliest anatomically and behaviourally modern human populations in western Europe," they wrote in the latest edition of the science journal Nature.

An octogenarian, who was to be cremated in a couple of hours, `comes back to life and claims that he had been sent back to earth from Yamapuri following the orders of Yamadharmaraja, the king of the hell.' "He (Yama) was sporting a large moustache with curly ends but had a bald head. He rebuked the two soldiers, who mistakenly took me to hell. They dropped me at my home by a magic scooter,'' Malla Reddy, the old man, told The Hindu on Thursday. According to Kamalamma, Mr. Reddy's wife, she found him in comatose in the early hours of July 8. A couple of villagers checked his pulse and breathing and declared him dead. The body was placed on paddy straws and a light was lit at his head as part of the funeral procedure. Mr. Reddy's two sons were informed of the `demise' of their father and the message was sent to their near and dear. As it was raining, the cremation got delayed.

Archaeologists said Monday they have something new to study at Fort Ancient State Memorial. A previously unknown circular structure about 200 feet in diameter was detected recently during preliminary work for an erosion-control project at the site of 2,000-year-old earthworks, state authorities said. More study will be needed to determine whether the structure is an earthworks or the remains of a ditch that held a series of large posts or of some other kind of structure, state authorities said.

Mobile phone use does not up the risk of cancer, at least in the first 10 years of use, the largest investigation to date shows. Past studies had suggested an increased risk of acoustic neuroma - a tumour of the nerve connecting the ear and the brain - but others did not. The latest Institute of Cancer Research work includes data from five European countries and more than 4,000 people.

UK researchers are asking for your help to find out exactly what is behind out-of-body experiences (OBEs). Psychologists at Manchester University have set up an online survey that they hope about 3,000 people will fill out. By comparing the responses of those who have and have not had an OBE they aim to discover the overarching cause. One theory is that it is down to how people perceive their own body - those unhappy or less in touch with their body are more likely to have an OBE.

Is animal testing a "small but vital" part of medical research?More than 500 doctors and scientists shown their support for continued "humane animal research" following the decision by a Staffordshire farm to stop breeding guinea pigs.They have signed a petition, maintaining that the role of animals is a "small but vital" part of medical research.

THE idea of a snowball Earth - a period when the planet was completely enveloped in thick sheets of ice - has received a knock. Evidence of prehistoric photosynthetic algae indicates that tropical oceans did not freeze over completely at the time.Geologists accept that Earth was in a deep freeze twice during a period from about 750 to 580 million years ago. But they disagree over whether it was a snowball or a "slushball" with areas of thin ice or open ocean.

Small gullies on Mars were carved by water recently and would be prime locations to look for life, NASA scientists said today. The new study suggests water may still bubble to the surface of Mars now and then, flow for a short stretch, then boil away in the thin, cold air.The conclusion is based on computer modeling of the atmosphere and how water would behave.

A leading medical journal has made a damning attack on homeopathy, saying it is no better than dummy drugs. The Lancet says the time for more studies is over and doctors should be bold and honest with patients about homeopathy's "lack of benefit".A Swiss-UK review of 110 trials found no convincing evidence the treatment worked any better than a placebo. Advocates of homeopathy maintained the therapy, which works on the principle of treating like with like, does work.

A computer simulation of the Earth's climate 250 million years ago suggests that global warming triggered the so-called "great dying". A dramatic rise in carbon dioxide caused temperatures to soar to 10 to 30 degrees Celsius higher than today, say US researchers.The warming had a profound impact on the oceans, cutting off oxygen to the lower depths and extinguishing most lifeforms, they write in the latest issue of Geology.The research adds to the growing body of evidence that higher temperatures, rather than a giant space rock hitting the planet, led to the greatest mass extinction in history.

We all use plastic trash bags; they're so common that we hardly give them a second thought. So who would have guessed that a lowly trash bag might hold the key to sending humans to Mars?Most household trash bags are made of a polymer called polyethylene. Variants of that molecule turn out to be excellent at shielding the most dangerous forms of space radiation. Scientists have long known this. The trouble has been trying to build a spaceship out of the flimsy stuff.But now NASA scientists have invented a groundbreaking, polyethylene-based material called RXF1 that's even stronger and lighter than aluminum. "This new material is a first in the sense that it combines superior structural properties with superior shielding properties," says Nasser Barghouty, Project Scientist for NASA's Space Radiation Shielding Project at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Students from Lancashire discovered 5,000-year-old human remains on an archaeological dig in south Wales. The remains of seven humans were found in a large pit in the mouth of a cave on the Goldsland Wood site, near Wenvoe, in the Vale of Glamorgan. Archaeology students from the University of Central Lancashire, in Preston, had been digging there as part of their course. The pottery and flint blades found with them date the remains to about 3000 BC.

The stalactites hang like glass daggers over the glacial lake. Ice peaks rise against the bright blue sky like crystal pyramids. Mounds of dark rock rise up between the snow and ice, discoloured after years of being covered by the glacier. This is Pastoruri. In the past 10 years, its ice caps have retreated by about 200m. Soon it, like many other glaciers in Peru, will have disappeared almost completely. At about 5,000m, or just over 16,000ft, it is one of the glaciers worst affected by climate change in Peru. And Peru, in turn, is one of the countries worst affected by climate change in the world.

A merchant ship loaded with exquisite porcelain left a port in southern China to trade with foreign countries by the ancient "Marine Silk Road". It sank, probably due to stormy waves, and was buried quickly by silt and slept under the water for about 800 years. The sunk ship, dated back to the early Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), was the first ancient vessel discovered on the "Marine Silk Road" of the South China Sea and was named "Nanhai No.1", meaning South China Sea No.1. Chinese archaeologists, using global positioning system (GPS) technology, have accurately located the ship and will make a huge"steel basket" to salvage the ship with the silt around it together.

A priceless set of ancient jewellery, probably from Egypt, is the latest archaeological jackpot experts have struck on this southern Italian island.Excavations at the 16th-century BC settlement of Mursia, on the north-western part of the isle, have uncovered a beautiful oriental style ring, necklace and pair of ear-rings.The discovery comes on the back of a string of spectacular recent finds made here which date back to ancient Roman times."We can say that they are jewels made with great craftsmanship and of major archaeological importance," said Sebastiano Tusa, a top Italian archaeologist and the Island's Sea Superintendent.

Fossils of a tiny creature which lived before the existence of dinosaurs have been found in Aberdeenshire. The tiny relics which are less than two millimetres long are the remains of cladocerans, or water fleas, which lived 410 million years ago.Experts at the National Museum of Scotland said the discovery, in the world-renowned cherts sediments at Rhynie, was of global importance. They said it explained the mystery of what the first freshwater fish fed on.

The largest "ondol" heating system dating from the Barhae kingdom has been unearthed in a nearly intact state in Russia's Maritime Province, confirming the kingdom to have been a Korean settlement. Ondol, literally "warm stone", is an under-floor heating system where flues carry hot gases below the living space. They were a distinct feature of Korean dwellings and are not found in the remains of Chinese, Khitan or Jurchen homes.The discovery proves not only that Balhae was a successor state to the ancient Korean kingdom of Koguryo, but also defeats the logic of China's recent "Northeast Project", which says Koguryo and Balhae were simply autonomous Chinese frontier districts.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have uncovered an important Stone Age site in the heart of Surrey. An excavation has turned up flint tools and cooking pots from about 10,000 years ago at the site on the North Downs. The area, which bears the remains of cooked meals, campfires and flints shaped into tools by people who visited the North Downs around 8,000BC, is believed to contain one of the most important Mesolithic excavations in Britain.

Europe has fixed on a concept for its next mission to land on the Red Planet. It aims to send a single robot rover to the Martian surface along with another, stationary, science package. The European Space Agency (Esa) had also been considering a mission concept from the British team behind Beagle 2, but this is no longer on the table. However, the Beagle team could yet see their science instruments, or ones derived from them, carried on the 580-million-euro mobile laboratory.

Sturdy shoes first came into widespread use between 40,000 and 26,000 years ago, according to a US scientist. Humans' small toes became weaker during this time, says physical anthropologist Erik Trinkaus, who has studied scores of early human foot bones. He attributes this anatomical change to the invention of rugged shoes, that reduced our need for strong, flexible toes to grip and balance. The research is presented in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

ANCIENT artefacts unearthed by a team of archaeologists have provided a fascinating glimpse into the borough's past.The dig on the site of the new sports centre at Dagenham Park School revealed that the area could once have been the location of primitive salt works.Finds included pieces of pottery from the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, the period from 2400 BC to AD 47, a clay pipe stem and ceramic bars, possibly from an undiscovered pottery kiln.Archaeologists believe that human activity in the area dates back to some time between 500,000 to 10,000 BC.

One of ancient Rome's most popular and important landmarks is "close to collapse", covered in graffiti, with valuable frescos peeling away. Castel Sant'Angelo, whose parlous state was revealed yesterday by Corriere della Sera, one of Italy's most authoritative newspapers, was built by the Emperor Hadrian as his own mausoleum on the banks of the Tiber. Its proximity to the Vatican persuaded popes in the Middle Ages to add ramparts and battlements to the marble structure and use it as a shelter when the city was under attack. A passage between the castle and the Vatican, once used by popes in time of crisis, still exists.Today it is almost as celebrated a symbol of Rome as the Colosseum, and it is the third most-visited landmark in the city.

The US space agency's robotic rover Spirit is approaching the summit of a hill it has been climbing on Mars since the end of last year. It now has less than 70m to drive in order to reach the peak of "Husband Hill" on the Red Planet and should complete the climb this week. When the rover gets there, it will take photos of what should be a spectacular view and scout for sites of interest. The twin robots Spirit and Opportunity have been on Mars since January 2004.

An original Albert Einstein manuscript has been unearthed at a university in the Netherlands by a student. Rowdy Boeyink stumbled on the document while he was researching papers belonging to an old friend of Einstein. "It was quite exciting," said Professor Carlo Beenakker, of the University of Leiden. "You can even see Einstein's fingerprints in some places." The 16-page manuscript, dated 1924, shows the German-born genius working on his last major theory.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS in the former Soviet republic of Georgia have unearthed a skull they say is 1.8 million years old. The skull from an early member of the genus Homo was unearthed on Sunday in Dmanisi, an area about 60 miles south-east of the capital, Tbilisi. In total, five bones or fragments believed to be about the same age have been found in the area, including a jawbone discovered in 1991. Georgian National Museum director David Lortkipanidze, who took part in the dig, said: "Practically all the remains have been found in one place. This indicates that we have found a place of settlement of primitive people."

Large-scale salt production occurred during the first millennium before Christ in the earliest "workshops" yet uncovered in China, archaeologists reported on Monday. In a latest joint study, researchers from China and US found multiple lines of evidence of salt production at Zhongba, an archeological site lying along the Yangzi River in Zhong Xian County, Chongqing, China.Their paper is published on the on-line issue of the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. The authors from the Harvard University, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of Science and Technology of China, are all internationally acknowledged archaeologists.Salt production and trade is thought to be critical to the development of all states and emergent empires. Until now, however, scientific evidence of early salt production has rarely been presented, and no studies of early Chinese salt production

The Ilulissat glacier in Greenland, a UN heritage site considered one of the wonders of the world, has shrunk by more than 10 kilometers in just a few years, in one of the most alarming examples of global warming in the Arctic region. "We are witnesses to one of the most striking examples of climate change in the Arctic," U.S. expert Robert Corell said during a recent helicopter flight over the glacier.The lower extremity of the glacier "has receded by more than 10 kilometers (six miles) in two or three years after having been relatively stable since the 1960s," he said.

Images taken by NASA reveal a mysterious ancient bridge in the Palk Strait between India and Sri Lanka. The bridge currently named as Adam´s Bridge is made of chain of shoals, c.18 mi (30 km) long.The bridge´s unique curvature and composition by age suggests that it may be man made. The legends as well as Archeological studies reveal that the first signs of human inhabitants in Sri Lanka date back to the primitive age, about 1,750,000 years ago.

Amid the weedy expanse that soon will become this growing town's reservoir, Erik Gantt and his archaeological crew are fighting a battle against time. The group from Fort Collins-based Centennial Archaeology Inc. was invited to Douglas County nearly a year ago to investigate findings that ancient people lived at the creek site southwest of Parker for thousands of years, building homes, creating artistic objects and hunting food. But budget overruns due to time-consuming discoveries on the Rueter-Hess Reservoir land have prompted the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to ask that archaeologists abandon the 6,500-year-old site early next month.

The discovery of archaeological sites and primeval cultures has transformed the simple agriculture city of Al Ain into an important centre of ancient history in the Arabian peninsula. A thriving civilisation existed in modern day Al Ain city and its suburbs during the Stone and Bronze Ages, with its distinctive culture and character, reported Gulf News of Dubai in a feature published on Friday. Findings and research attribute many inventions and arts and crafts to ancient inhabitants of this oasis. It is believed that the city has provided a base to archaeologists to dig deep into its sands and unearth the roots of civilisation.Archaeological discoveries in the north of Al Ain a few years ago revealed a part of human settlements that date back to the Stone and Bronze Ages 5000BC.

A series of rare engravings, believed to date from the Mesolithic period, 10,000 years ago, have been discovered in a cave in Somerset.The three abstract squares, thought to have been made with stone tools, were found in Long Hole cave in Cheddar by the University of Bristol Speleological Society.The find follows the discover of ancient inscribed crosses at nearby Aveline's Hole cave in February this year

EARTH'S natural radioactivity has been measured for the first time. The measurement will help geologists find out to what extent nuclear decay is responsible for the immense quantity of heat generated by Earth. Our planet's heat output drives the convection currents that churn liquid iron in the outer core, giving rise to Earth's magnetic field. Just where this heat comes from is a big question. Measurements of the temperature gradients across rocks in mines and boreholes have led geologists to estimate that the planet is internally generating between 30 and 44 terawatts of heat. Some of this heat comes from the decay of radioactive elements. Based on studies of primitive meteorites known as carbonaceous chondrites, geologists have estimated Earth's uranium and thorium content and calculated that about 19 terawatts can be attributed to radioactivity. But until now there has been nothing definitive about exactly how much uranium there is in the planet, says geologist Bill McDonough of the University of Maryland in College Park. "There are fundamental uncertainties."

The recent excavations of the Thanh Den site in Cu An Hamlet, Tu Lap Commune, Me Linh District of Vinh Phuc Province, conducted by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, have revealed a large volume of findings belonging to the early and late stages of development of the Dong Dau Culture. The findings have also helped to affirm the existence of the greatest centre of non-ferrous alloy production in Viet Nam. Within a 100sq.m area, 108 bronze artefacts were unearthed.Thousands of pointed axes, spears, arrows, hooks, pieces of copper wire and many pieces of earthenware were also discovered.Other findings made of stone and ceramics were much scarcer in comparison with bronze items. The findings show that about 3,500 years ago, bronze instruments played an important role and appeared to replace similar items made of stone.

If a group of US researchers have their way, lions, cheetahs, elephants and camels could soon roam parts of North America, Nature magazine reports. The plan, which is called Pleistocene re-wilding, is intended to be a proactive approach to conservation. The initiative would help endangered African animals while creating jobs, the Cornell University scientists say.Evidence also suggests, they claim, that "megafauna" can help maintain ecosystems and boost biodiversity.

Noah used his Ark, but the Natural History Museum is using 450 supermarket bread trolleys, 500 plastic packing crates and 10,000 pieces of foam to transport more than 28 million insects into temporary storage.The specimens form part of one of the biggest insect collections in the world - second only to that of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington - and their removal is the most complex ever undertaken in Britain.Over 18 weeks the museum hopes to ship out its entire collection of insects and spiders to eight locations, seven within the grounds of the museum and one at a warehouse in south London.

The early European explorers went gaga over the abundance of the Americas. Primeval forests covered the land, deer and elk were plentiful, and herds of bison thundered across the plains, they reported back to Spain, Portugal and England. Fish filled the rivers, and mussels and clams grew big and juicy along the shores. From South America came tales of unimaginable riches buried in secret gold mines in pristine jungle. And save for a few powerful but isolated societies, such as the Inca in Peru and the Maya in Mexico, and nomadic bands of primitives up north, almost no one lived in this fantastic paradise. These lush lands -- a gift from God! -- were wild and free. That's the textbook version of the New World at the time of Columbus, the one you probably learned in school. But in a provocative new book, "1491," science writer Charles C. Mann proposes a revision. Mann, a contributing editor for Science and the Atlantic Monthly, explores a growing body of archaeological, anthropological and historical scholarship to suggest that this convenient version of virgin American wilderness is likely completely wrong.

Bulgarian archaeologists have unearthed 15,000 miniature golden rings that date back to the end of the third millennium BC. The treasure consists of more than 15,000 miniature golden rings. They say the treasure is a find that equals the famous treasure of Troy. Many of the rings are so finely crafted that their design etchings are invisible, even with the use of an ordinary microscope.

The 67-year-old western Colorado mystery of the cellar with a tiled floor has an explanation now, and the Western Investigations Team has a new notch in its belt.The solution is that the seeming inlaid-tile floor discovered in 1937 by Collbran-area rancher Tom Kenney was one of nature's little twists. It was not, as had been speculated, placed and fitted by man thousands of years before. Rather, it was the handiwork of nature.For years, though, said members of the investigations team made up of the Museum of Western Colorado and Mesa State College, the tiled floor was the stuff of archaeological dreams.It began in 1937, when rancher Tom Kenney decided to build an outhouse and started digging into the soft earth of Battlement Mesa. Kenney changed goals when he struck an impermeable layer of rock, which, on closer inspection, looked like a tiled floor buried under 10 feet of boulders and clay. Instead of an outhouse, Kenney decided he would have a tiled root cellar.His curiosity aroused, though, Kenney summoned some Grand Valley experts to look at his tiled floor. A delegation examined the floor and decided, according to The Daily Sentinel of May 3, 1937, that there was "not the slightest doubt but that the work is of some prehistoric civilization."

HUMAN brain cells have been grown artificially in the laboratory in a world first for Scottish scientists.A team at Edinburgh University managed to turn embryonic stem cells into stable nerve stem cells used in the brain by adding a cocktail of chemicals. The "brain in a bottle" will assist in developing drugs to combat diseases like Parkinson's or Alzheimer's and may eventually enable doctors to repair damage to the brain. The process has already been patented and an Edinburgh-based company is set to develop commercial applications for the research.

Neanderthals and early humans apparently were surrounded by small prey, but instead mostly ate woolly mammoths and other big game, according to two recent studies, like a modern individual who lives on a chicken farm but rarely eats poultry in favor of beef. The findings suggest that Neanderthals and our prehistoric relatives lived in organized communities that banded together early on to form hunting parties that took down large game. The study concerning early humans focused on the 16,000-year-old "Magdalenian woman" skeleton from a site called Saint-Germain-la-Rivière in France.

MADISON, Wis. - After creating the most detailed analysis yet of what the Milky Way looks like, astronomers say a long bar of stars cuts on an angle through the center of the galaxy that includes the sun and planet Earth. Some scientists have suspected the presence of the stellar bar, but the survey led by two Wisconsin astronomers shows the bar is far longer than previously believed, and at a specific angle.

A dispute over the data for global warming may be down to the way sensors were placed on weather balloons when readings were taken in the 1970s. For years, experts sought to determine why temperature readings taken from weather balloons did not show the same increases as readings on the ground. The resulting mismatch has fuelled scepticism of global warming.

A submerged island that could be the source of the Atlantis myth was hit by a large earthquake and tsunami 12,000 years ago, a geologist has discovered. Spartel Island now lies 60m under the sea in the Straits of Gibraltar, but some think it once lay above water. The finding adds weight to a hypothesis that the island could have inspired the legend recounted by the philosopher Plato more than 2,000 years ago.

By Richard Hollingham, BBC News, Greenland Greenland is turning green, something the rest of us should be very worried about indeed. Greenland's ice is melting rapidly. In some places, glacial levels have been falling by 10 metres a year and ultimately contributing to rising sea levels.

ROME (Reuters) - Italian archaeologists believe they are on the verge of finding the ancient ships downed in the battle of the Aegates Islands more than 2,000 years ago thanks to modern technology and a police tip-off."This project has an enormous historical value, but perhaps more important is the relevance for archaeology," Sebastiano Tusa, Sicily's chief of marine culture, told Reuters on Friday."What we find will help us understand how wars were waged at that time and how battleships were built."After two years of underwater searches around the islands, which lie west of Sicily in the Mediterranean Sea, experts last year found a bronze helmet and some amphorae from about 241 BC, the date of the decisive Roman victory over the Carthage fleet.

Scientists have for the first time constructed a fully articulated, or jointed, Neandertal skeleton using castings from real Neandertal bones.The reconstruction, which has been part of several exhibitions, presents a striking visual image of what the Neandertal (often spelled Neanderthal) looked like, experts say."At last I felt that somehow I had actually met a Neandertal," said Ian Tattersall, the curator of the Department of Anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City.The skeleton was reconstructed by G.J. Sawyer, an anthropologist at the AMNH, and Blaine Maley, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.

The University of the South Pacific today revealed the face of one of the very first people to have lived in the Fiji Islands. The face of Mana - the 3000 year old woman from Fiji, was unveiled by USP Vice-Chancellor Professor Anthony Tarr during a special ceremony organised to mark this historical event. While something like this is becoming common internationally, this is the first time a face from the Lapita era in the Pacific, has been revealed. The face of Mana was reconstructed using a model of her skull which was discovered by a member of a research team from USP and the Fiji Museum which excavated an early human settlement at Naitabale in the south of Moturiki Island, central Fiji (Map 1) in June-July 2002. The team was led by Patrick Nunn, Professor of Geography at USP, aided by Mr Sepeti Matararaba of the Fiji Museum and Ms Roselyn Kumar (USP's Institute of Applied Science). The Naitabale settlement was probably established about 1000 BC by a group of Lapita people whose ancestors had come from the Solomon Islands. The distinctive Lapita pottery that identifies the culture of these early settlers was found in abundance at the Naitabale settlement.

Marseille - Remains from the neolithic era (about 5600 BC to 4000 BC) have been found in the southern French port city of Marseille, local archaeologists reported on Wednesday. Excavations near the city's railway station unearthed flints, shells and fragments of pottery.According to the regional daily newspaper La Provence it is the first time a neolithic site has been found in the city.

Fossilized plant spores could carry a record of ancient holes in the Earth's ozone layer. If so, they could test one theory about what caused our planet's biggest mass extinction 250 million years ago.Plant spores contain natural sunscreen chemicals called para-coumaric acids, which protect their DNA from harmful UV-B radiation.

The world's largest frozen peat bog is melting, which could speed the rate of global warming, New Scientist reports.The huge expanse of western Siberia is thawing for the first time since its formation, 11,000 years ago. The area, which is the size of France and Germany combined, could release billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This could potentially act as a tipping point, causing global warming to snowball, scientists fear. See also New Scientist article

Summers are getting sunnier in Oregon, according to evidence presented today by University of Oregon physicists during the 2005 Solar World Congress in Orlando. The study is a first step toward testing and refining regional climate models for the Pacific Northwest that will help track global warming. In sharp contrast to reports of increased global dimming, the study's researchers reported a 10 to 15 percent increase in solar radiation at sites in Burns, Hermiston and Eugene over the last 25 years, according to an initial analysis of data collected since 1979 by the university's Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory.

The sleeping giant of American earthquake faults, the New Madrid zone in the middle of the country, may be showing new signs of activity.The journal Nature reported in June that a University of Memphis study had detected a half-inch of fault shift in the past five years. The movement, detected with the Global Positioning System (GPS), could be a sign that pressure is building toward a significant quake in a region that's home to millions."We go from nothing moving to a little movement. That's a huge difference," says Arch Johnston, director of the university's Center for Earthquake Research and Information.

Ancient Egyptians gossiped about a bald queen, royals who had affairs, missing bodies, homosexuality, harem intrigue and more, according to a noted Egyptologist. Lisa Schwappach-Shirriff, curator of California's Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum, which houses North America's largest collection of Egyptian artifacts, recently found evidence for tabloid-like gossip in the museum's eclectic archives and elsewhere. The findings suggest humans always have enjoyed chatting about personal or sensational information concerning others.

Plato's account of how the fabled city of Atlantis sank below the surface of the ocean does have scientific grounding, according to a seafloor survey of an island west of the Straits of Gibraltar. Marc-André Gutscher of the University of Western Brittany in Plouzané, France, performed a detailed mapping of the seafloor on Spartel Island, already proposed as a candidate for the origin of the Atlantis legend in 2001 by French geologist Jacques Collina-Girard. Lying 60 meters beneath the surface in the Gulf of Cadiz, the island is right "in front of the Pillars of Hercules," or the Straits of Gibraltar, as stated by Plato.

Binh Thuan, July 24 (VNA) - Archaeologists have discovered ancient pottery furnaces, the oldest ones discovered so far, of the ethnic Cham people in southernmost central Ninh Thuan province's Ham Thuan Bac district.Oldest pottery vestiges unearthed at the 500 sq.m. excavation site date back to the turn of the 10th century, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Nucleus Technique Centre .

Kolkata, Aug 7: In a rare archaeological find, three stupas besides pottery and terracotta remains traced to the Asoka period were excavated at a few places in Jajpur district of Orissa, the state's Minister for Culture, Damodar Rout, said here today. The excavation, undertaken by the Orissa Institute of Maritime and South East Asian Studies under the Department of Culture, was made at Tarapur, Deuli, Kayama and Radhanagar under Dharmasala police station in Jajpur district, Rout told reporters. Square-shaped stupas made of laterite blocks, burnt bricks, railing pillars, cross-bars and other architectural features of Asoka stupas were unearthed as well as pottery and terracotta remains of that period.

Tucked into a leafy fold of the Ozark Mountains, a new dinosaur museum boldly goes where few museums have gone before--deep into the pages of Genesis. At first glance, with its research-quality replicas and lush dioramas of prehistoric Earth, the Museum of Earth History, which opened in April in this Victorian spa town, may seem like any other facility devoted to dinosaurs and fossils. But with exhibits aligned with the Bible's six days of creation, it also is emblematic of the increasing volume in the national debate over how evolution should be taught in public schools and the emboldening of those who oppose or question evolution. At issue, in state legislatures, school boards, museums and other cultural institutions across the country, is whether evolution, Charles Darwin's widely accepted theory that all life descended from common ancestors and developed through natural selection and random mutation, should be presented alone or in conjunction with alternative explanations. Discuss here

The residents of Barrow say they have noticed big changes since the 1970s For the past 20 years climatologists and ice and atmosphere scientists have been working in Alaska studying climate change. Now they have discovered a rich new source of records extending their knowledge back by decades through the oral history of native Alaskans.

Anaesthetics and disinfectants are thought to be a modern medical invention but evidence is coming to light that medieval doctors knew of them too. Evidence found at the ancient Soutra Hospital site, in Scotland, suggests the medieval Augustine monks also knew how to amputate limbs, fashion surgical instruments, induce birth, stop scurvy and even create hangover cures.The excavations at Soutra have also unearthed fragments of pottery vessels that were once used for storing medicines such as an analgesic salve made from opium and grease and treatment for parasitic and intestinal worms.

JERUSALEM An Israeli archeologist says she has uncovered in east Jerusalem what she believes may be the fabled palace of the biblical King David. Her work has been sponsored by the Shalem Center, a neoconservative think tank in Jerusalem, and funded by a American Jewish investment banker who would like to help provide scientific support for the Bible as a reflection of Jewish history.Other scholars who have toured the site are skeptical that the foundation walls Eilat Mazar has discovered are David's palace. But they acknowledge that what she has uncovered is rare and important - a major public building from around the 10th century BC with pottery shards that date from the time of David and Solomon and a government seal of an official mentioned in the book of Jeremiah.

NICOSIA (Reuters) - An American researcher on the trail of long-lost Atlantis said on Thursday he will lead an expedition next year to prove the mythological civilisation lies in the watery deep between Cyprus and Syria.Robert Sarmast believes Atlantis did exist and that his quest is not a wild goose chase inspired by the ramblings of an ancient Greek philosopher thousands of years ago."All the evidence points here. This is where civilisation started," he said in Cyprus. Sarmast lives in Los Angeles.

A "mummy" that duped archaeologists and nearly sparked a diplomatic row between Pakistan and Iran is finally being laid to rest.Discovered in a wooden sarcophagus in October 2000, the mummy was thought to be Persian and date to about 600BC.Iran laid claim to the sarcophagus and Pakistani provinces squabbled over it until tests showed the "mummy" was a fake only a few decades old.

Clearing -- or perhaps roiling -- the murky and often contentious waters of Mesoamerican archeology, a study of 3,000-year-old pottery provides new evidence that the Olmec may not have been the mother culture after all. Writing this week (Aug. 1, 2005) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), a team of scientists led by University of Wisconsin-Madison archeologist James B. Stoltman presents new evidence that shows the Olmec, widely regarded as the creators of the first civilization in Mesoamerica, imported pottery from other nearby cultures. The finding undermines the view that the Olmec capitol of San Lorenzo near the Gulf of Mexico was the sole source of the iconographic pottery produced by the earliest Mesoamerican civilizations.

Spruce pine cones dating back 50,000 years and found in a grayish clay wall at a beach on Bodega Head may be used to sprout a new tree. It may sound a bit like "Jurassic Park," but getting ancient seeds to germinate isn't without precedent, and the resulting plants aren't easily distinguished from their modern cousins. Still, if state archaeologist Breck Parkman succeeds with the spruce pine cones from Bodega Head, the seeds will be the oldest known to be germinated.

Much of what ancient scribes carved in stone is lost to weathering. Among the hard-to-read are tablets from Draco, a rather severe politician who codified the laws of ancient Athens.A new technique promises to reveal these and other stone scribblings using X-rays.Scientists figure there are at least half a million Greek and Latin inscriptions on stones in various states of decay and legibility.Cornell researchers developed a process called X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging to recover faded text on stone by "zapping and mapping" the inscriptions.

A 900-year-old door - once thought to be covered in human skin - has been identified as the oldest in the UK.Archaeologists discovered the oak door in Westminster Abbey was put in place in the 1050s, during the reign of the Abbey's founder, Edward the Confessor. It makes it the only surviving Anglo Saxon door in Britain. Tests also showed fragments of hide stuck to the door - which legend said was the skin of a punished man - was cow hide, said an Abbey spokeswoman.

It has been an article of faith among many archaeologists that the flourishing Olmec settlement in Mexico 3,000 years ago was the parent culture of the Maya, Aztec and other civilisations. Then scientists used neutron activation to look at Olmec pottery: in particular, minerals added to make pots more plastic and to temper them in a kiln. Two studies in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Science suggest there is more to the story. Olmec pottery turned up in many places in the Mexican peninsula. So trade - not just in pottery but in obsidian, marine shell, iron ore, jade and macaw feathers - took place. If so, with whom? And where does that leave Olmec primacy? Was there some other civilisation, so far unidentified?

BHUBANESWAR: : Buddhist stupas and inscriptions indicating Lord Buddha's visit to the erstwhile Kalinga have been found in archaeological excavations in Jaipur district in Orissa. Emperor Ashoka built 10 stupas in the Kalinga. ``The rare discovery would solve many unanswered questions pertaining to the location of the capital of Kalinga, preaching by Lord Buddha in Kalinga and the Kalinga war,'' Culture Minister Damodar Rout told presspersons here on Wednesday

Researchers have used new microscopic technology to reconstruct the diets of two extinct human species that lived in what is now South Africa.The technique involves scanning the tooth surfaces in extreme detail to learn what a species ate. Reconstructing the diet of extinct human species can help shed light on our evolutionary history. Scientists studied two species of early humans, Australopithecus africanus, which lived in southern Africa around three million years ago, and Paranthropus robustus, which inhabited the same area about a million years later.

The letters contain a great message from Dr. Einstein to everyone who lives nowadays, when the fighting against nuclear weapons continues.The events, which happened on the different continents, are not only similar in their importance for the history of science but also curiously coincided in terms of time. While working with the catalogue of Isaac Newton's archival documents, researchers discovered several sheets of paper written by brilliant physicist and mathematician himself. They were considered lost for 70 years. Meanwhile in Japan eighty-year-old Nobuko Shinohara announced that she owned several Albert Einstein's letters, which had never been exposed to public.

Expectations were high today that Ireland's largest Rath, an ancient fort, has been uncovered outside Londonderry. Archaeologists unexpectedly unearthed the 100m diameter ringfort, or Rath, while searching in Newbuildings for a souterrian - an underground tunnel used by natives to hide from invading Vikings.It is thought this one is between 1,000 and 1,500 years old

Rome, Italy, Aug 1 - An 8,000 year-old pirogue was found in Lake Bracciano, in the area of the neolithic village La Marmotta. "It's an exceptional example of ancient ship engineering, which proves the advanced knowledge of the peoples who lived here in 6000 BC" say the archaeologists who made the discovery, of the Prehistoric Museum 'Luigi Pigorini' in ROme.More than 10m long, made out of a single oak trunk, the pirogue was still being made when it was abandoned for reasons we still don't know.

ORGANISERS of an archaeological event were so surprised by the number of people who joined in the fun that they have vowed to make it an annual event.Almost 1,000 people of all ages made their way to Flag Fen to take part in activities, watch history being recreated and dig deep into their own ancestry.It was the first time that the Bronze Age site laid on a lot of the activities, including a book fair and a hands-on mini archaeological dig.In November 1982, while working in a drainage dyke at Flag Fen, that Dr Pryor discovered the waterlogged timbers of a Bronze Age religious site.

ARCHAEOLOGISTS have unlocked 5000-year-old secrets of "Scotland's Stonehenge" which reveal the extent of astronomical knowledge among the ancient site's builders.A groundbreaking 3D-laser scan of the renowned Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis has shown that the area's tribes were far more advanced than previously thought.

It is one of the most evocative traces of humanity's ancestors ever found, a trail of footprints pressed into new fallen volcanic ash some 3.6 million years ago in what is now Laetoli, Tanzania. Discovered in 1978 by a team headed by Mary Leakey, the Laetoli footprints led to the stunning revelation that humans walked upright well before they made stone tools or evolved large brains.They also engendered controversy: scientists have debated everything from how many individuals made the prints to how best to protect them for posterity.Experts have generally come to agree, however, that the tracks probably belong to members of the species Australopithecus afarensis, the hominid most famously represented by the Lucy fossil.Now new research is calling even that conclusion into question.

ADDIS ABABA, 07/28 - An Ethiopian delegation left for France on Wednesday to discuss ways of re-erecting the historic Axum obelisk with the United Nations. The Axum obelisk, weighing 160 tons and standing 24 meters high, is around 1,700 years old and has become a symbol of the Ethiopian people`s identity. In 1937, the invaders of fascist Italy dismantled and took it on the orders of Benito Mussolini. Italy returned the monument to the northern ancient town of Axum in April. The delegation, led by Minister of Culture Teshome Toga, left for the headquarters of UNESCO to discuss studies conducted by Ethiopia and the organization concerning the re-erection of the obelisk as well as to set a timeframe for the re-erection.