Newsdesk Archive
Is global warming making hurricanes more ferocious? New research suggests the answer is yes. Scientists call the findings both surprising and "alarming" because they suggest global warming is influencing storms now -- rather than in the distant future.However, the research doesn't suggest global warming is generating more hurricanes and typhoons. The analysis by climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows for the first time that major storms spinning in both the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have increased in duration and intensity by about 50 percent.
For more than 500 years scholars have been wrestling with an ancient Roman puzzle that would test even the most cunning of quiz-masters. How do you put together a giant stone jigsaw when 80% of the pieces are missing and you have even lost the lid? Now with a joint Italian-US team on the case using a hi-tech approach the answer might finally be within reach.
A NASA@Science article - July 29, 2005:"It's definitely bigger than Pluto." So says Dr. Mike Brown of the California Institute of Technology who announced today the discovery of a new planet in the outer solar system.The planet, which hasn't been officially named yet, was found by Brown and colleagues using the Samuel Oschin Telescope at Palomar Observatory near San Diego. It is currently about 97 times farther from the sun than Earth, or 97 Astronomical Units (AU). For comparison, Pluto is 40 AU from the sun. This places the new planet more or less in the Kuiper Belt, a dark realm beyond Neptune where thousands of small icy bodies orbit the sun. The planet appears to be typical of Kuiper Belt objects--only much bigger. Its sheer size in relation to the nine known planets means that it can only be classified as a planet itself, Brown says.See also BBC article:Astronomers detect '10th planet'The largest object found in our Solar System since Neptune was discovered in 1846, it was first seen in 2003 but has only now been confirmed as a planet.Designated 2003 UB313, it is about 3,000km across, a world of rock and ice and somewhat larger than Pluto.
Mexico City - Mexican archaeologists who were carrying out exploratory digs came upon a pre-Hispanic domestic altar and three tombs in an area near the famed Teotihuacan pyramids, 50km north-east of Mexico City. The National Anthropology and History Institute (INAH) said on Wednesday that the discoveries were made in the central marketplace of San Juan Teotihuacan, a town located two kilometres from the Teotihuacan site.
The altar, measuring one metre by 25cm, is from approximately 450 AD, the age of splendour of Teotihuacan, a magnificent city with thousands of structures, among them the Sun and Moon pyramids and the Passageway of the Dead.
An exceptionally well-preserved room of what appears to have been a Roman bathhouse has been uncovered during building works in the grounds of the Colchester Sixth Form College. The walls of the room are of stone (septaria and mortar) and are 0.65 m wide. They stand to a maximum height of 1.3 m. The room has a plain red tessellated floor with a square setting (1.3 m across) for a basin. A well-preserved wooden water-main lies under the floor and crosses under the centre of the basin showing that the water must have been under pressure and thus either provided a small fountain or, perhaps more likely, was drawn off via a tap.
Engineers are carrying out final checks on the ice monitoring craft CryoSat, in preparation for an autumn launch. The European Space Agency (Esa) satellite has gone through months of testing in Germany and will be transported to Russia's Plesetsk Cosmodrome next month. The three-year mission will monitor how the world's ice sheets are changing.Data gathered by submarines suggests that Arctic sea ice is thinning rapidly. The measurements carried out by the subs, in the 1960s and 1970s, and in the 1990s, by scientific vessels, suggest that Arctic sea ice has shrunk 40% in draught - the difference between the surface of the ocean and the bottom of the ice pack. But scientists still do not have a full picture of how the polar caps as a whole are responding to climate change because of the paucity of data.
A newfound insect shows that two species can combine to create a third species, and that humans may be unknowingly encouraging evolution, according to researchers. Most new animal species are believed to arise when a single species splits into two. But new animals can also be created when two species come together to create a single new species, the researchers say. This two-become-one evolutionary process, common among plants, has long been considered extremely rare and unimportant among animals. The new study, based on a fly species found in the northeastern United States, suggests otherwise. The Lonicera fly evolved as a hybrid of two existing U.S. species, the blueberry maggot and the snowberry maggot, according to the study. The newfound species is named after the honeysuckle plant (scientific name: Lonicera), which the insect's life cycle revolves around.
A replica of an ancient boat set off Sunday on a monthlong experimental voyage from Kumamoto to Osaka in a bid to resolve an archaeological mystery -- how heavy stone coffins were shipped in the sixth to seventh centuries to emperors' tombs in the Kinki region some 800 km away.The 12-meter-long wooden boat, rowed by 18 people, set off in the Ariake Sea from Uto, Kumamoto Prefecture, towing rafts carrying a "makadoishi" stone coffin and lid.
June marks the beginning of the melt season for Arctic sea ice, which reaches its minimum extent at the end of the season in September. In the past few Septembers, Arctic sea ice concentration (the amount of ice in a given area) has been markedly reduced. September 02, 03 and 04 set new record lows at around 15 percent below average. 2005 is shaping up to be another record-low.
SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) - Archaeologists have unearthed a 2,400-year old golden treasure in an ancient Thracian tomb in eastern Bulgaria, the director of the country's History Museum said Monday.The gold-rich burial was discovered late on Saturday by a team of archaeologists, working on excavations near the village of Zlatinitsa, some 290 kilometers (180 miles) east of the capital, Sofia.
A Pravda article:People of a Siberian tribe live for not less than 100 years and never suffer from diseases. When children of the tribe see people outside the settlements for the first time they got shocked that so many people drink alcohol and smoke.The tribe is in fact isolated from the rest of the world. The settlers say they feel sorry for other people living in the world because their life is wicked.There are 5,759 people in the tribe; all of them are vegetarians.
A set of ancient silverware has been dug up from Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by a volcano 2,000 years ago.The hand-crafted goblets, plates and trays had been bundled into a wicker basket by an inhabitant fleeing the erupting Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.The tableware, well preserved in ash and mud, was discovered five years ago and archaeologists have used the latest techniques to separate 20 pieces.
MINNEAPOLIS - The clay on a University of Minnesota lab table came from one of the oldest and deepest lakes in the world and is more than 100,000 years old. At first glance it appears fairly uniform in color and texture, but a closer, computer-assisted look with high-tech light and magnification reveals subtle color differences and fine layers of sediment.Just as trees show their growth history through annual rings, sediment layers from lake bottoms provide a vertical record of geological history over a much longer time: in some cases tens of thousands of years. Decomposed algae, fish bones, fine minerals and other debris accumulate year after year.
Chinese archaeologists have discovered seven tombs, dating back 1,000 years to 2,200 years, in north China's Shanxi Province. Located in the Xiguan village in Yuxian County, the tombs include five from the Warring States (475- 221 B.C.), one of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. - 220 A.D.) and one of the Tang Dynasty (618- 907).
VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - The debate over the existence of sasquatch, aka Bigfoot, an ape-like creature said to haunt the wilderness of western Canada has entered the world of modern DNA testing.A laboratory will test hair samples that several residents of Teslin, Yukon, say were left when the large, but so-far mythological creature made a late-night run through their community in early July.
Athens - A major face-lifting project which kept ancient monuments on the Acropolis hill shrouded in scaffolding for years - to the dismay of camera-toting tourists - will be finished by the end of 2006, Greek culture ministry officials have said.Work on the Parthenon and Athena Nike temples, as well as the massive Propylaea gate - all built in the mid-5th century BC at the height of ancient Athenian glory - is part of a massive restoration and conservation project first launched 30 years ago.
Cairo - A piece of a valuable alabaster block stolen from a tomb in the Valley of Kings in Luxor in 1958 was posted back to officials almost 50 years after its disappearance, Egyptian antiquities authorities said on Tuesday.The item, which is inscribed with hieroglyphics on one face and decorated with raised carvings on the other two faces, was returned to the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) on Monday following a letter from an American explaining the story behind its disappearance.
A Pravda articleVyacheslav Strushchenko decided to invent a magnetic motor in 1975. The inventor read more than a hundred books to gain necessary knowledge. For many times Vyacheslav gave up working on his project due to mental strain.Finally, he put all the parts together. The work took him just a week yet it took him 25 years to come up with the final version of the model.
Delaware brewer with a penchant for exotic drinks recently concocted a beer similar to one brewed in China some 9,000 years ago.Sam Calagione of the Dogfish Head brewery in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, used a recipe that included rice, honey, and grape and hawthorn fruits. He got the formula from archaeologists who derived it from the residues of pottery jars found in the late Stone Age village of Jiahu in northern China.The residues are the earliest direct evidence of brewed beverages in ancient China.
A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say.The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm in the Swabian Jura.The prehistoric "tool" was reassembled from 14 fragments of siltstone.Its life size suggests it may well have been used as a sex aid by its Ice Age makers, scientists report.
In a recent paper in Geology, Marc-Andre Gutscher of the European Institute for Marine Studies in Plouzané gives details of one candidate for the lost city: the submerged island of Spartel, west of the Straits of Gibraltar.The top of this isle lies some 60 metres beneath the surface in the Gulf of Cadiz, having plunged beneath the waves at the end of the most recent ice age as melting glaciers caused the sea level to rise.Geological evidence has shown that a large earthquake and a tsunami hit this island some 12,000 years ago, at roughly the location and time indicated in Plato's writings.
What may be the world's oldest known perfumery, set atop a Cyprus hillside with sweeping views of the Mediterranean, has just been excavated by a team of archaeologists from the Italian Institute of Technologies Applied to Cultural Heritage, according to recent news reports.Remains at the Pyrgos-Mavroraki site near Nicosia include clay perfume bottle fragments that contain 14 perfumes of varied fragrances and ten odor essences. Archaeologists also found an olive oil press next to the perfume factory.Maria Rosario Belgiorno, director of the excavation, said she believed the perfumery was 4,000 years old and represented the oldest known perfumery.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A dust-cloaked star very much like our sun may have been the site of a cosmic catastrophe involving collisions between asteroids, comets or even planets, scientists reported on Wednesday.Astronomers believe many stars had dust around them at an early planet-forming stage of their development, but this is an adolescent, and its dust is warm and very close to the star, about the same distance away as Earth is from the sun.
A new study of gas in meteorites suggests Mars was bitterly cold for pretty much all of the past 4 billion years, putting the freeze on hopes that the red planet had any extended wet periods during which life could have flourished.Several rocks that were once near the surface of Mars, and have in the past few million years been kicked up by impacts that sent them to Earth, have been freezing cold for most of the past four billion years, the study concludes.
A sophisticated arrangement of knots and strings, found on the site of the oldest city in the Americas, indicates ancient Peruvians were skilled at conveying detailed information much earlier than once thought.Archaeologists say the string arrangement, known as a quipu or khipu, indicates ancient Americans were expert communicators thousands of years earlier.Until now the oldest known quipus, often associated with the Incas, dated from about 650 AD.
SEATTLE - Cloistered around padded tables, scientists from around the country have been peering through microscopes and measuring bone fragments trying to unearth the history of an ancient skeleton found along the Columbia River.Researchers on Sunday offered details of their first comprehensive study of the 9,000-year-old Kennewick Man, one of the oldest and most complete skeletons ever found in North America.The team of anthropologists, geochemists and data analysts have been busy assembling the skeleton's more than 300 bones and bone fragments at the University of Washington's Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, where the remains have been since 1998.
The Roman catacombs are intricate labyrinths of burial chambers that were built roughly between the third and fifth century AD. They are considered among the most important relics of early Christianity.But a recent study of a Jewish catacomb in Rome finds that it was started a century before the oldest known Christian versions.In addition to the 60 Christian catacombs that have survived in Rome, there are two Jewish catacombs, which are distinguishable by the decorative artwork and inscriptions that were used.
Scientist Professor Richard Dawkins has opened a global conference of big thinkers warning that our Universe may be just "too queer" to understand. Professor Dawkins, the renowned Selfish Gene author from Oxford University, said we were living in a "middle world" reality that we have created. Experts in design, technology, and entertainment have gathered in Oxford to share their ideas about our futures.
During Tuesday 19 July our Newsdesk links included one to a bogus story on Antarctica. The link has been deleted and we apologise sincerely to our visitors for wasting their time with it in the first place. It happened because, due to a combination of circumstances, this link was not checked out before it went on line. See apology by Graham Hancock here.We will do everything we can to make sure such a mistake does not occur again. At the same time, however, it is important to stress that we obviously cannot guarantee the accuracy of every story that we link to on Newsdesk. Our view is that our visitors can quickly follow and check out links themselves and make up their own minds as to the worth of what's reported there. Nevertheless it is also right and proper that we should exercise some quality control and do our level best to prevent complete drivel from getting posted as news stories.Here the problem is the woefully understaffed nature of gh.com -- we have no staff! Richard Fusniak is a most helpful and generous volunteer but he has a lot of other things to do with his life as well as moderating our message boards. I have spent the whole of the last year writing my new book and most of the past two months preparing it for the printer and really have had almost no time to attend personally to the site.The way it works at present with the newsdesk is that a small number of correspondents (two quite regular, two occasionally) send me links to stories they find interesting. I generally have a quick look at the stories if I have time and then pass them on to Richard to display on newdesk. On this occasion because I was rushed and very preoccupied with a number of other things I didn't look at the Antarctica story beyond the subject-line and just sent it on to Richard to put up on newsdesk.Because we're running on a shoestring, and both Richard and I are very busy with other things, I have to admit it is possible that such a thing could happen again. The ideal solution to this problem would be if we could put together a wider panel of volunteers who would be prepared to help us to run the newsdesk in a much more systematic way than has been possible hitherto. This would include finding and sending us links to good, relevant stories on the net, and also helping us to set up some kind of quality-control system where perhaps different volunteers in rotation would have the responsibility for checking that bogus items, like the recent Antarctica item, do not slip through.If anyone would like to help in any way, or has any suggestions, please write to me at [email protected] once again.Best wishes,Graham Hancock
Australopithecus afarensis, the early human who lived about 3.2 million years ago, walked upright, according to an "evolutionary robotics" model.The model, which uses footprints to predict gait, suggests "Lucy", as the first fossil afarensis was called, walked rather like us.This contradicts earlier suggestions that Lucy shuffled like a bipedally walking chimpanzee.
The scientist who led Britain's Beagle 2 mission to Mars has told BBC News he has multiple sclerosis (MS). Professor Colin Pillinger, from the Open University, said he had been diagnosed with a progressive form of the neurological condition in May.The planetary scientist underwent tests after having difficulty walking for the past two years. He now uses crutches when he is away from the security of his home or Milton Keynes laboratory.
NASA's Deep Impact may fail to live up to its billing as the first mission to look inside a comet. Computer processing designed to correct the spacecraft's defocused camera cannot fully correct the images taken just after impact.If the situation cannot be rectified, there will be no way of seeing the newly formed crater - one of the mission's major goals.
Scientists discovered mysterious circles on the area of the ancient Russian town of Arkaim, which is situated on the outskirts of the city of Chelyabinsk, and is the same age with Egypt and Babylon.Historians, archaeologists and ufologists have spent many years trying to unravel the secrets of the town. Which nation was living in Arkaim more than 40 centuries ago? How did people of such ancient civilization manage to accomplish incredible technological progress, which still seems to be unachievable nowadays?A group of Russian researchers has recently returned from the mysterious region.
Note: This is a June 2004 news item:A scientist says he may have found remains of the lost city of Atlantis. Satellite photos of southern Spain reveal features on the ground appearing to match descriptions made by Greek scholar Plato of the fabled utopia.Dr Rainer Kuehne thinks the "island" of Atlantis simply referred to a region of the southern Spanish coast destroyed by a flood between 800 BC and 500 BC.
BEIJING, July 13 -- According to the Chinese Business View, a cluster of over 100 ancient tombs of the Han (206BC- AD 220), Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties has been discovered in a 200-mu (33 acres) land in Xi'an's Chang'an District. However, due to improper excavation of the local cultural relic department, this ancient tomb cluster of high archaeological value is destroyed currently.Relevant experts said that such an ancient tomb cluster is highly valuable in terms of archaeological research.
KASHIHARA, Nara Pref. (Kyodo) Workers began setting up cooling pipes Monday that will bring down the temperature inside the ancient Takamatsuzuka tomb in Asuka, Nara Prefecture.The emergency measure is part of efforts spearheaded by the Cultural Affairs Agency to preserve the tomb's famous wall paintings, which have fallen victim to mold.
Cairo - Egyptian authorities announced on Monday the discovery at Cairo's 12th century Citadel of an underground passageway tall enough to accommodate a mounted horseman.The 150-metre-long tunnel, the longest of several beneath the citadel, was found in the vicinity of the 19th century Mohamed Ali mosque in the course of a project to drain off groundwater from under the compound.
New research led by a University of Washington scientist has found stories that could relate to a large Seattle fault earthquake around A.D. 900 and specific eyewitness accounts linked to a mammoth 1700 earthquake and tsunami in the Cascadia subduction zone.This illustration in the American Museum of Natural History depicts a late 19th century interior ceremonial screen from Port Alberni, on British Columbia's Vancouver Island and shows Thunderbird carrying Whale in its talons, a common native depiction of seismic activity.
Stonehenge's megaliths come from the mountains of Wales, according to a study which pinpoints the quarry where the bluestones were cut around 2500 B.C.Writing in the July-August issue of British Archaeology, Timothy Darvill, professor of archaeology at Bournemouth University, and Geoff Wainwright, a retired English Heritage archaeologist, describe a "small crag-edged promontory with a stone bank across its neck" at one of the highest points of Carn Menyn, a mountain in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales.Measuring less than half a hectare, the site is "a veritable Aladdin's Cave of made-to-measure pillars for aspiring circle builders,"See also BBC News item: Stonehenge quarry site 'revealed'
Japanese researchers have observed mice behaving strangely after being exposed to electric and magnetic fields similar to those sometimes detected before earthquakes. The levels of exposure were far smaller than humans are capable of perceiving.Professor Takeshi Yagi of Osaka University says he first noticed the unusual behaviour in mice in his laboratory eight years ago, the day before the Kobe earthquake.
Note: This is a Nov 2004 news item:The robot experiment inside Cheops Pyramid in Giza will be repeated in Oct 2005 but this time by a different institution, said Chairman of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawas.The University of Singapore is currently designing a robot to reach beyond the door which blocked the route of the robot used by the US National Geographic in September 2003, said Hawas in statements on Saturday.
The launch of the Discovery space shuttle has been delayed for several days because of technical problems.No new launch date has been set, but Nasa managers say the most optimistic possibility for the next attempt could be as early as Saturday (i.e. July 16)The current launch window runs until the end of July, after which Discovery would have to wait until September to get airborne.
Archaeologists working at a proposed development site in Mesa say they have unearthed one of the largest integrated canal systems the Hohokam Indians ever built in the Phoenix area. Twenty Hohokam canals, uncovered during an ongoing archaeological survey of the 240-acre site at Dobson Road and Loop 202, have been found since October. The largest measures 45 feet wide and 16 feet deep."They are the size of canals in Phoenix today, but these were done with digging sticks and baskets," said Tom Wilson, an archaeologist and director of the Mesa Southwest Museum. "There are some extraordinary things there."
Studies released earlier this year found the people of Madagascar have origins in Borneo and East Africa. Half of the genetic lineages of human inhabitants of Madagascar come from 4500 miles away in Borneo, while the other half derive from East Africa, according to a study published in May by a UK team.
Norfolk acted as a hub of resistance against Roman occupation, new analysis of archaeological finds has revealed.But the empire's military might eventually eclipsed native East Anglians in a brutal crackdown described as a "lost holocaust".A sprawling Celtic 'proto-city', as significant to its Iceni occupants as modern-day London, sprawled across eight square miles of West Norfolk, almost certainly providing a regular home to Boudicca.A team have discovered burnt fragments of wattle and daub and stains in the earth. They believe these are the remains of a roundhouse which was razed to the ground by Roman invaders almost two millennia ago.
In 2008 NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter will carry a powerful modern camera into low orbit over the Moon's surface.Its primary mission is not to photograph old Apollo landing sites, but it will photograph them, many times, providing the first recognizable images of Apollo relics since 1972.
The remains of a Saxon rotunda in Herefordshire is being hailed as a site of international importance. Archaeologists will begin next month excavating the area in Leominster which is currently being used as a staff car park for Herefordshire Council workers.The rotunda is thought to be part of a monastery founded by one of Britain's ancient rulers. Archaeologist Bruce Watson said it was expected to be the "best preserved example of its type in England".See also Shropshire Star: Historians stunned at Saxon find
Tehran, July 6, 2005, (CHN) -- All historians and experts in Iran, believe that the Persian Cuneiform was invented during Darius reign.It is widely believed that the invention of this script was due to the order of Darius the great, the third king in line from the beginning of the Dynasty. Most of Achaemenid historical texts support the same hypothesis as well but just recently, Dr. Badr-ol-zaman Gharib, delivering her speech, titled Emergence and Changes in Ancient Persian Script in a forum on Achaemanid tablets, claimed that the Persian cuneiform predates Darius.
FRANKFURT, Germany - German and U.S. scientists have launched a project to reconstruct the Neanderthal genome, the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology said Wednesday.The project, which involves isolating genetic fragments from fossils of the prehistoric beings who originally inhabited Europe, is being carried out at the Leipzig-based institute
When most people think about Mayan archaeology they imagine excavations in royal tombs or trenches cut into tree covered mounds. Few of us would expect that a significant find could be made underwater... particularly in a swamp.But Belizean archaeology is a many-faceted field, as the presentations at this year's Archaeology Symposium, now underway in San Ignacio, amply reveal.
The earliest known template for the image of St George slaying the dragon has been found in Syria, archaeologists believe.A mosaic floor dating from approximately AD260 depicting the figure who became the patron saint of England has been found in the city of Palmyra in the Syrian desert. Experts say that the portrait is one of the finest classical mosaics yet uncovered and may even be the source of the St George legend.George was reputedly a Roman soldier, martyred in Palestine some 1,700 years ago. The mosaic shows Bellerophon, a hero in Greek mythology, killing a chimera, and it was found in what appears to have been a dining room in Palmyra.
Remnants of early humans in the Great Plains were successfully located at a dig in northwestern Kansas by a group of researchers from the Kansas Geological Survey. at the University of Kansas, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.The survey team, made up of the group of researchers, staff from the Kansas State Historical Society and approximately 40 volunteers from the Kansas Anthropological Association, found bones from a bison killed by humans, and that shows evidence of some of the earliest human life in the Great Plains.
Washington, D.C. Massive extinctions of animals and the arrival of the first humans in ancient Australia may be linked, according to scientists at the Carnegie Institution, University of Colorado, Australian National University, and Bates College. The extinctions occurred 45,000 to 55,000 years ago.The researchers traced evidence of diet and the environment contained in ancient eggshells and wombat teeth over the last 140,000 years to reconstruct what happened. The remains showed evidence of a rapid change of diet at the time of the extinctions. The researchers believe that massive fires set by the first humans may have altered the ecosystem of shrubs, trees, and grasses to the fire-adapted desert-scrub of today. The work is published in the July 8, issue of Science.
Thursday, 7 July, 2005 BBC News"Large numbers of casualties have been reported after at least six explosions on the Underground network and a double-decker bus in London during the morning rush hour" ... end quote.All Tube and bus services in central London have been suspended.See also ITV News and Sky News
A dig at Dinefwr Park, Llandeilo, has uncovered fragments of burnt bone that suggest cremation burials could have been under way at the site as early as the second century.The uncovered vital clues show how people disposed of the dead in Roman times.
London - A collection of notes by the 17th century English mathematician and physicist Sir Isaac Newton, that scientists thought had been lost forever, has been found.The notes on alchemy were originally discovered after Newton's death in 1727 but were lost after they were sold at auction in July 1936 for £15.
Archeologists have found a piece of 23-carat Thracian gold in south Bulgaria.The team was examining the Tatul sanctuary near Kardzhali when they picked the precious find. It was discovered in a layer from the Late Bronze Age.Experts believe that the piece was a part of a gold-trimmed stone mask.
Human settlers made it to the Americas 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence.A team of scientists came to this controversial conclusion by dating human footprints preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico.They say the first Americans may have arrived by sea, rather than by foot.Newscientist.com has a similar article published on the same theme: Footprints rewrite history of first Americans
Duncan M. Roads, Editor, of NEXUS Magazine reports: 'We had an interesting story on our ABC TV show "The 7.30 Report" last week, about a major Aboriginal find in central Australia.'The full TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation is now available for all to read online.
Saturn's vast and majestic ring system has its own atmosphere - separate from that of the planet itself, according to data from the Cassini spacecraft.By making close flybys of the ring system, Cassini has been able to determine that the atmosphere around the rings is composed principally of molecular oxygen (O2).
Scientists in India have warned that the ancient glacier that feeds the holy river Ganges is likely to melt down before the end of the century.They say it could disappear even faster if climate change speeds up. They say man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are almost certainly to blame for the current level of warming.They are worried because the glaciers are vital for their contribution to water supplies to many millions of people in the Himalayan region.
A university professor believes he has solved one of the oldest Stonehenge mysteries - the exact location in Wales where the bluestones were quarried.Tim Darvill has found what he thinks is an ancient quarry at Carn Menyn high in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire.The bluestones - which form the inner circle of Stonehenge - were transported over 240 miles to Salisbury Plain.
SINGAPORE Did Chinese sailors really discover America before Columbus? A new exhibition sets the scene, presenting new evidence that lends support to the assumptions made in "1421: The Year China Discovered America" by Gavin Menzies."1421: The Year China Sailed the World," in Singapore in a special tent near the Esplanade (until Sept. 11), is primarily a celebration of Admiral Zheng He's seven maritime expeditions between 1405 and 1423. With a fleet of 317 ships and 28,000 men, Zheng He is generally acknowledged as one of the great naval explorers, but how far he actually went remains a matter of dispute.
In the past few weeks, archaeologists have discovered a Thracian temple in the Eastern Rhodope mountains near the village of Tatul and the Perperikon settlement near Kurdjali. The temple may include the gravesite of the mythical figure Orpheus
Theoretical physicist Michio Kaku talks about the fate of planet earth.This is an old BBC news item but is being discussed here
Cairo - A large sarcophagus dating to the reign of King Ramses II (1279-1213 BC) was discovered in Saqqara, south of Cairo, the Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Tuesday.The sarcophagus, made of red granite, bears hieroglyphic text and different titles of the deceased. It belongs to an overseer of stables during the reign of Ramses II
A 2.34-million-year-old tool manufacturing site in East Africa may have been the Stone Age's center for high tech, according to French archaeologists who studied more than 2,600 artifacts excavated there.The archaeologists believe relics at the site in Kenya, called Lokalalei 2C, display a level of tool-making sophistication among its dwellers that was unique to the Late Pliocene, which occurred between 2.6 and 2.0 million years ago.
A Japanese research team has discovered part of a mural painting in the ruins of the colossal stone Buddha statues in Bamiyan, central Afghanistan, that were destroyed by the country's former Taliban rulersThe mural was found in a small cave carved into a cliff on the eastern side of the statues, according to team leader Kazuya Yamauchi, chief researcher of the National Research Institute for Cultural Properties of Tokyo, Kazinform quotes KYODO.
The painting, made on the dome-shaped roof of the cave measuring 2. 5 meters across, appears to be of the torso of a Buddha, Yamauchi said.
Last summer, the University of Nevada, Reno, instructor made two intriguing finds in the Trapper Creek area while working with a Matanuska-Susitna Borough crew.The teams discovered sharp, stone blades and other tools at twin sites perched on knolls about five miles apart, one overlooking Trapper Creek, the other the Susitna River.They dated the sites at about 7,000 years old, one of the earliest found in the Susitna Valley and among the earliest in all of Southcentral.
The recent discovery of the remains of a shipwrecked fourth-century BC vessel, nicknamed Kythnos I after the Greek island near which it was found, is the latest example of the archaeological riches still submerged in Greek waters. It also demonstrates the technological advances that underwater archaeology has made in this country in recent years.Greece has no shortage of skilled archaeologists. But when it comes to underwater research, the Ministry of Culture has only recently begun mixing academic knowledge with high-tech wizardry.
BEIRUT: For the last 30 years exploring the prehistory of Lebanon was virtually impossible for archaeologists.But recently, at the start of the new millennium and almost three decades after the last survey and excavation, a new era of prehistoric field research is beginning in the country.
Carmen Lalli was wrapping up a two-year excavation at one of ancient Rome's most luxurious suburban villas in April when she noticed a small piece of marble sticking out of the ground in her trench. Thinking it was only a fragment, the young Italian archaeologist raked the soil away, revealing the edge of a statue. It turned out to be an extraordinary find: a marble figure of Niobe--one of antiquity's most tragic mythic figures--headless, more than six feet tall, and weighing more than 3,000 pounds. "To find a statue of this size, this quality--I was completely astonished," recalls Lalli.
It has been scientifically proved that America's ancient inhabitants, the Maya, used to wrap the deceased in caoutchouc and evaporate the mummies in humid tropical jungle, like in a sauna.The archaeological area of 113 megapolises and neighboring towns is situated on the square of 1200 kilometers. Scientists uncovered a lilac-colored stone knife and two skeletons, which belonged to personas of royal blood. One of them was colored with vermillion.A leading archaeologist, Oscar Quintana, acknowledged that scientists had uncovered the center of the bloody cult of the Maya. American anthropologist David Webster is certain that the Maya were using almost painless pleasure from battles and fights.
A FRENCH magazine has said it had carried out experiments that proved the Shroud of Turin, believed by some Christians to be their religion's holiest relic, was a fraud."A medieval technique helped us to make a Shroud," Science and Vie (Science and Life) said in its July issue.The Shroud is claimed by its defenders to be the cloth in which the body of Jesus Christ was wrapped after his crucifixion.
Archaeologists in the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad have uncovered 16th Century jewellery which they say is unlike any found in the area before.They were found in a 10cm round box during an excavation at the site of a medieval castle in the city that contained 11 items made of gold, silver, tin and hematite, covered with hieroglyphs and inscriptions in Hebrew, ancient Greek and Latin.
A tiny, 2,600-year-old statue stolen during World War II has been returned and should send a message to the British Museum, which currently has the Parthenon Marbles - a collection of Greek sculptures taken from the Parthenon in 1811.A British ancient art dealer returned the tiny statue of a smiling, long-haired youth after realizing the piece had been stolen from the Aegean Sea island of Samos during World War II. Greece was occupied by forces from Germany, Italy and Bulgaria during the war.
London Science Museum curator Michael Wright characterized as invaluable the Antikythera Mechanism, an extremely complex astronomy instrument. The device dates back to the 1st century BC and according to Mr. Wright, overturns the myth that ancient Greeks were philosophers and had no interest in technology.For the first time in the history of the findings that come from the specific period of time, something so complex has been discovered, underlined Mr. Wright speaking to MPA within the framework of an open lecture in Thessaloniki yesterday.
The long-lost "Battle of Anghiari," considered Leonardo da Vinci's best work, could lie hidden behind a wall of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence, say art experts. Maurizio Seracini, a world-renowned expert in art diagnostics whose investigations are referred to in Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, said a recent conference he had found a suspicious cavity behind the council room's east wall.The wall now houses a mural by 15th-century painter, architect and writer Giorgio Vasari.
The ill-fated Beagle 2 Mars probe should never have been given the go-ahead, a powerful MPs' committee has said.The much-hyped probe was "doomed from the start", the public accounts committee said while criticising the management of civil space activities. The projects, in partnerships with the government, were "expensive, uncertain, and over-ambitious", it said.The craft failed to send a signal back on Christmas Day 2003
WASHINGTON - Archaeologists have uncovered for the first time the remains of a Bronze Age glass factory, where skilled artisans made glass from its raw materials. Surprisingly, this factory, which was bustling around 1250 B.C., is in Egypt rather than Mesopotamia, which is generally thought to be where glass was first made.
Glass was extremely valuable during the Bronze Age, so this discovery implies that Egypt may have enjoyed more clout than was previously thought as a producer of this sought-after substance.
ROME - Researchers suspect the corpse of a 5,000-year-old mummy frozen in the Italian Alps might have been contaminated by bacteria since its discovery in 1991, a doctor who cares for the body said Monday. X-rays have shown bubbles in the bones that could be caused by bacteria, said Eduard Egarter Vigl, in charge of preserving the mummy at the South Tyrol Archaeological Museum in Bolzano, Italy.If bacteria are present, disinfection will be necessary to prevent possible damage to the man's remains.
KUCHING, June 12 (Bernama) -- A team of world-renowned scientists led by British-based archaeologist Dr Patrick Daly is working to determine the nature of human activity in Southeast Asia as far back as 40,000 years ago.Daly, of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research of the University of Cambridge, and his team expect to have the answers documented and published in a book comprising two monographs in 18 months under the Niah Caves Project of the Sarawak Museum.But first the scientists have to put together and study 60,000 pieces of ceramics unearthed from the Niah Caves' West Mouth Cemetery, a task they expect to complete by November
JERUSALEM - Israeli researchers have germinated a sapling date palm from seeds 2,000 years old, hoping its ancient DNA could reveal medicinal qualities to benefit future generations, one of the scientists leading the project said Sunday.
"A lotus seed was germinated (in China) after 1,200 years, but nothing has been germinated coming from this far back, not to 2,000 years," said Sarah Sallon, of the Louis Borick Natural Medicine Research Center in Jerusalem
Archaeologists have entered a long-sealed crypt in Guatemala to find an ancient murder scene. The tomb, in the ancient city of Waká, contains the remains of two women, one pregnant, arranged in a ritual tableau.
Researchers say the young, wealthy women were probably slaughtered as part of a power struggle between Mayan cities. And that, they say, sheds new light on the role of women in the Mayan culture 1,600 years ago.
The US Deep Impact spacecraft is on course to fire a probe into a comet on 4 July, scientists have announced.The missile, travelling at 100 times the speed of a bullet, is expected to blast a hole in the heart of the space rock, spraying out ice and dust that will then be analyzed. It could shed light on the origin of the planets.
Archaeologists have discovered Europe's oldest civilisation, a network of dozens of temples, 2,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids.More than 150 gigantic monuments have been located in Germany, Austria and Slovakia. They were built 7,000 years ago, between 4800BC and 4600BC. Their discovery will revolutionise the study of prehistoric Europe.Read also:How 7,000-year-old temples reveal the elaborate culture of Europe
The earthquake- and tsunami-battered region of Sumatra, Indonesia, is at risk for more temblors and killer waves. Study co-author John McCloskey, a seismologist, said the finding adds urgency to the push for greater earthquake and tsunami preparedness in the Indian Ocean regionEarthquake hazard specialist Roger Bilham said McCloskey and his colleagues are doing the right thing by making their findings public but cautioned that the findings are not a prediction of when the next earthquake will occur. The Mentawai section of the Sunda trench might rupture next week, or it might rupture in 50 years.
Recent discoveries by a team of archaeologists indicate that the coast of the Caspian Sea in Mazandaran Province was home to the earliest hominid habitation in that region. 400,000-year-old stone tools discovered in the valleys of Shuresh near the Rostam Kola, Huto, and Kamarband caves are the oldest ever found in the area.Previous studies had dated human settlement in the region to have begun about 50,000 years ago.
Scientists have long thought the salt came from large-scale production on the northern side of the Yucatan peninsula or from mines in the interior of Guatemala. Last year, however, an archaeological team found a wealth of new Maya sites in a saltwater lagoon off the coast of Belize, which provide strong evidence that salt was mass-produced there to feed the empire 1,400 years ago. Snorkeling through mangrove forests in a saltwater lagoon off the coast of Belize in search of Maya artifacts they found 41 new salt-production facilities.
A royal Egyptian treasure discovered during World War II and considered one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time remains virtually unknown to the general public. Millions of Americans were dazzled when the treasures of Tutankhamun toured the country in the 1970s. Now, as preparations are being made for a new exhibition, a new generation is eagerly awaiting a chance to see the boy king's royal paraphernalia.In the late 1930s and early 1940s, an entire complex of royal tombs was found intact at the ancient city of Tanis, in the Nile Delta northeast of Cairo, yielding four gold masks, solid silver coffins, and spectacular jewelry, some even once worn by a pharaoh mentioned in the Bible.
Professor John E Mack was an eminent Harvard psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and Pulitzer Prize winner whose clinical work had focused on explorations of dreams, nightmares and adolescent suicide.Then, in 1990, he turned the academic community upside down because he wanted to publish his research in which he said that people who claimed they had been abducted by aliens, were not crazy at all. Their experiences, he said, were genuine.Ten years on from a row which nearly lost him his job, hundreds of people who claim they were abducted still revere him
USDA Forest Service (FS) research suggests that a decline in the abundance of freshwater mussels about 1000 years ago may have been caused by the large-scale cultivation of maize by Native Americans.Researchers with the FS Southern Research Station (SRS) unit in Oxford , MS, report results from a study of archaeological data from 27 prehistoric sites in the southeastern United States
World's leading experts have accused Burma's military regime of waging "archaeological blitzkrieg" against the legendary Buddhist treasures of Pagan.Richard Engelhardt, regional advisor for the UN's cultural arm, Unesco, says they are ruining it.
Ancient Chinese craftsmen might have learned to use diamonds to grind and polish ceremonial stone burial axes as long as 6,000 years ago, US researchers said Wednesday. Researchers at Harvard University have uncovered strong evidence that the ancient Chinese used diamonds with a level of skill difficult to achieve even with modern polishing techniques.
Geologists at the Universities of Florida and Kansas said Wednesday the first animals to appear in the fossil record may have originated in Siberia.
Trilobites, primitive shelled creatures many believed originated the first fossils, first appeared millions of years before the first fossil, the study said.
The Daily Grail has announced the launch of Sub Rosa, a free download magazine in PDF format. Greg Taylor is Editor-in-Chief.The layout, all tastefully arranged by Art Director, Mark James, utilises beautiful graphic layouts and even insert videos.In this first issue Robert Schoch discusses the age of the Sphinx controversy, the Yonaguni 'monument', and Dr. Zahi Hawass.There is also a profile on Terence McKenna, Stuart Hameroff's quantum consciousness, Donnie Darko, columns from notables and much more besides.
Artefacts dating back 4,000 years, unearthed at a burial site in Janabiya, are shedding more light on merchant movements during the Dilmun era. Dilmun seals found at the site are inscribed with an Indus Valley inscription.Indus Valley was an ancient civilisation that thrived in an area between Pakistan and India between 2,800BC and 1,800BC.
A study by University of Queensland and University of California-Berkeley researchers suggests meditation can strongly affect attention and consciousness. With the support of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, 76 monks participated in the study near or at their mountain retreats in India's Himalaya, Zanskar and Ladakhi mountain ranges.
A BBC News report:The UK has its first hosepipe ban in nine years after a dry winter.But why is this green and pleasant land of high rainfall running low on water?See also this ITV New report
Magnetic structures on the Sun are linked to solar storms that can set off disturbances on Earth.New research links a particular magnetic structure on the Sun with the genesis of powerful solar storms that can buffet Earth's atmosphere. The research may enable scientists to create more accurate computer models of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and help in forecasting storms days before they occur.