Newsdesk Archive

Scientists have found a sub-atomic particle they cannot explain using current theories of energy and matter. The discovery was made by researchers based at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organisation in Tsukuba. Classified as X(3872), the particle was seen fleetingly in an atom smasher and has been dubbed the "mystery meson".

Somewhere in the imagination, at an intersection of the idealized Golden Age and mankind's descent into manifest imperfection, existed the island civilization of Atlantis. This realm of divine origin was ruled from a splendid metropolis in the distant ocean. Its empire, described by a philosopher as "larger than Libya and Asia combined," enjoyed prosperity and great power. In time, driven by overweening ambition, a common theme in antiquity and not unheard of today, Atlantis set out to conquer lands of the Mediterranean. But in a terrible day and night of floods and earthquakes, Atlantis was swallowed by the sea, sinking into legend. (read more) The story endures as a classic in the genre of lost worlds long vanished, the ruins and treasures of which are surely somewhere out there yet to be found. Legends, though, are often mirages, forever shimmering out of reach, yet exerting an attractive power beyond reason. Sometimes the pursuit of legends leads to unforeseen knowledge.

In the outer reaches of the Solar System Astronomers have found a large object orbiting the Sun near Neptune's orbit. It was discovered on Friday by an automated sky survey project designed to search for threatening asteroids that may be on an Earth impact course. The object is about 570 km across, making it one of the largest bodies of its kind found in modern times.

One of Britain's most important archaeological finds is under threat - from North Yorkshire potato farmers. Scientists have discovered a vast area of buried buildings and villages spanning 6,000 years, under fields at West Heslerton, near Malton in North Yorkshire. But the land is used by farmers who are being urged to start digging it up to plant potatoes for the nearby McCain chips factory.

The giant sunspots that produced the largest explosion ever seen on the surface of our star are set to return. They are moving back into view of the Earth after being carried to the Sun's far side by its 27-day rotation period.Astronomers say that even out of direct vision the spots have continued to eject clouds of super-hot material.

ANCIENT Scots may have enjoyed sophisticated economic, social and cultural links with the builders of one of the world's most mysterious ancient monuments, according to new research. Experts have revealed a previously unknown link between the elite of ancient Scots society and Stonehenge, dispelling the myth that Scotland's Bronze Age tribes were uncultivated barbarians.

People were keeping warm by a fire in a rock shelter at least 56,000 years ago, according to new analysis of what may be the oldest known human record in the Americas. This is about 40,000 years earlier than generally agreed for when people first arrived in the Americas. The international team of researchers dated charcoal from a hearth at the controversial Pedra Furada archaeological site in Brazil and reported its findings in the latest issue of the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

IT is one of history's biggest mysteries and has confounded experts for hundreds of years.But a team of scientists believe they have discovered why the world's first great civilisation, established in Egypt nearly 5000 years ago, crumbled and plunged into a dark age that lasted for more than 1000 years. The researchers, including one academic from St Andrews University, have produced new evidence linking the demise of the Egyptian Old Kingdom with decades of drought after a study of layers of sediment at the source of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana in northern Ethiopia.

A Greek play believed lost when the Library of Alexandria is said to have burnt down in 48 BC is to be revived after fragments of text were found in an Egyptian mummy. Papyrus inscribed with excerpts of Aeschylus's Trojan War trilogy Achilles were found by archaeologists.

An Iron Age torc unearthed in a Norfolk field this summer has been hailed as an exceptional find on a par with the famed Snettisham hoard. Norfolk Museums Service expert Dr John Davies said the item dated back to the Iceni tribe, probably a generation before Iceni leader Boudicca lived.

North America is hotting up - Climate change caused by human activity has been detected on a local level, an international group of scientists says. The researchers compared temperatures in North America between 1900 and 1999 with what one might expect if man had - and had not - had an influence.

Cyprus's national theater company, Thoc, plans a modern-day world premiere of Aeschylus's Trojan War story Achilles in Cyprus next summer. The play will then be performed in Cyprus and Greece. Scholars had believed the trilogy to be lost forever when the Library of Alexandria burned to ashes in 48 BC. "But in the last decades archaeologists found mummies in Egypt which were stuffed with papyrus, containing excerpts of the original plays of Aeschylus," Thoc director Andy Bargilly told Reuters.

An archeological team claimed that the megalithic archaeological site of Tatikev Kamen in north Macedonia actually was a 4,000-years-old observatory, which indicated that there was a Stone henge in Macedonia, MIA news agency reported Thursday. ?@?@According to the team, the site discovered a year ago by archaeologist Jovica Stankovski had served both as a ceremonial place and as an observatory.

SETI legend Jill Tarter is not one to engage in conspiracy or secrecy when it comes to alien contact. "Information is the property of all humanity," the director of the SETI Institute said at a recent presentation. "If a message came to us, it would be our duty to share it with the rest of the world." Tarter concedes that the search for extraterrestrial intelligence may well be the proverbial needle in a haystack, but believes that we must search nevertheless. And she says that our capacity to do so is now greatly enhanced with the recent unveiling of the SETI's own Allen Telescope Array - a purpose-built array of 500 radio telescopes whose working Tarter explains through the analogy of a "fly's eye".

New data suggests that if there is ice at the Moon's poles then it is probably in the form of scattered grains rather than thick sheets, say scientists. Radar data from the permanently dark regions of the Moon lack the tell-tale signature of thick ice deposits.

The fossil remains of early humans are exceptionally rare. Scientists trying to reconstruct the evolutionary history of our species often have to draw long, dotted lines between a few key fossils. So introducing a bogus ancestor into our family tree can throw the entire study of human evolution off course. This is exactly what happened with the Piltdown skull, which was exposed as an elaborate hoax exactly 50 years ago this month.

Human bones believed to date from the ancient Olmec civilization have been found in southeastern Honduras, suggesting the influential culture extended farther than previously thought, Honduran authorities said on Tuesday. Carmen Fajardo, at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History, said it appeared to be the first time Olmec remains have been found outside the so-called Mesoamerican corridor that stretches from Mexico to central Honduras.

The first time Sousath Phetrasy saw the huge stone jars scattered in a grassy field, he was entranced. Carefully avoiding old unexploded bombs in the ground, the Laotian businessman walked among hundreds of the ancient, lichen-covered containers, each one large enough to hold a person. The biggest weighed more than 6 tons. From that moment in 1990, the jars became his obsession. He quit his state job and moved to northern Laos to be near them. Over the next seven years, he spent his spare time clearing unexploded bombs, grenades and mortar shells -- leftovers from the United States' 1960s-era "secret war" in Laos -- from three jar fields. His only tools were an old metal detector and a long knife. "I wanted to open the mysteries of the jars, the power of the jars, and let people feel that they have come to a holy place," said Sousath, now 43 and the owner of a tourist hotel. "This is the brother of Stonehenge and Easter Island."

The British-built Mars lander, Beagle 2, is on schedule to reach the Martian surface on Christmas Day. Mission officials say its parent space craft, Mars Express, has survived a massive solar storm and is within 20 million kilometres of the Red Planet.

Two men accused of stealing rocks with American Indian petroglyphs from a national forest in Nevada didn't know the removal of the important artifacts was illegal, one of their lawyers said Monday. John Ligon, 40, Reno, and Carroll Mizell, 44, Van Nuys, Calif., pleaded innocent in U.S. District Court on Monday to two federal felony counts under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act. The crimes carry potential maximum sentences of more than 10 years in prison and $250,000 fines.

Chinese archaeologists recently found a large-scale building foundation in Erlitou Ruins of Yanshi, central China's Henan Province, which belongs to the later period of Xia Dynasty. The discovery, the first of its kind in China, again excited the archaeological field after the heated discussion on the division of Xia and Shang dynasties . ?@"The site causes great concern because it was founded at the key moment when the Xia Dynasty (c. 2100 BC - c. 1600 BC) was replaced by the Shang Dynasty (c. 1600 BC - c. 1100 BC)," said Dr. Xu Hong, head of the Erlitou Archaeological Team under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "Was it built by people of the Xia or the Shang? Further excavation will help find the final resolution and provide new materials for periodization of the two dynasties."

The optical lens (which have also been found in Iraq and central Australia) can only be manufactured by means of a special abrasive based on Cerium Oxide. This substance can only be isolated with the use of electrical energy and photochemical process. What does this mean? The Egyptians used electricity ...which also answers how detailed and beautiful heiroglyphs and paintings could be done inside pyramids where there was no light. Archeologists used to speculate that torches or fires were used, but no soot, smoke or burn marks have ever been found in any of the pyramid ceilings or walls. So how can a modern lens be made in 4000 B.C. Egypt? (read more) The fact is that I have located more than 450 ancient lenses in museums all round the world, and I even own a Greek crystal lens of the 6th century BC myself.

Ancient terracotta dragons, phoenix statues and ceramic urns unearthed from a royal compound accidentally discovered where Vietnam's new parliament was being built were put on display for the first time on Tuesday. In its first international briefing at the site, the Ministry of Information and Culture displayed some of the estimated two million items that have been uncovered since excavation began in December 2002 in the capital Hanoi.

State archaeologist Kevin Jones wants authorities to check into the legality of a northern Utah collector's posting of a purported Inca skull for auction on the Internet. Gilmer Brush of Plain City posted the ad for the male skull on eBay. He said he had sold at least three other skulls on the Internet and didn't understand the stir this one has caused.

Some 50 people have been arrested in Iran's clerical capital of Qom after police broke up a crowd that had assembled to watch the rumoured execution of a half-woman half-tigress, the Jomhuri-Eslami newspaper reported Sunday. According to the report, a large crowd turned up in a square in the city to watch the hanging of the woman-beast, only to be met by police who attempted to convince them that the bizarre rumour was in fact absolutely false.

After 10 years of digging, "Little Rome," as the great Roman orator Cicero called it, is coming to light near Naples, in what could be the most important discovery of an ancient Roman town since the excavation of lava-entombed Pompeii and Herculaneum in the 18th century. The ancient town of Puteoli, once one of the major trading ports of the Mediterranean, has been found under Rione Terra, a stout promontory in Pozzuoli, just 8 miles west of Naples.

The European Space Agency (Esa) has cancelled its space mission that was to look for planets circling other stars. Over 400 astronomers had written to Esa asking it to keep the 2008 mission. But, budget problems caused by delays in the troubled Ariane 5 rocket have killed the project, as well as the lander segment of a mission to Mercury.

Covering an area of 260 square meters, the site consists of four square stone piles facing a nearby "sacred" mountain traditionally revered by local Tibetans. It was the first time that a red pottery pot was found buried in each of the piles with marks of fire and smoke at the bottom and skulls of various animals were found circling the pottery pots including skulls of cattle, sheep and dogs, according to Zhang Jianlin, a researcher with the Shaanxi Archaeology Research Institute.

As a rare Grand Sextile of planets takes place during a lunar eclipse, enormous explosions continue on the sun. They are now taking place on the backside, as sunspot area 484 moves around to the back of the star, so they will not have dire effects on the Earth. The Grand Sextile traces a six- sided star in the sky, and for it to take place during a lunar eclipse is considered extremely important by astrologers. Skeptics have always contended that the movement of stars and planets could not possibly have an effect on earthly life, that the energies involved are so small that they are all but nonexistent. However, recent quantum physical experiments have shown that a strange and powerful connection exists between photons (particles of light) that is known as entanglement. When two photons are split apart, action that physically affects one also physically affects the other, no matter how far apart they are, and the effect is instantaneous.

A total lunar eclipse has been visible this weekend from Europe, Africa, the Americas, and much of Asia. The Moon regularly passes into the Earth's shadow and becomes dimmer. It happens about every six months or so. A lunar eclipse has no great importance astronomically but can be enjoyed by many people without special equipment.

Ongoing research at Neolithic sites around the UK has revealed striking similarities in their acoustical properties. Key examples, both in Ireland, are the huge passage tomb of Newgrange and the burial mound known as Cairn L at Loughcrew. These sites contain passageways leading to large circular chambers, and have a resonant frequency (at which sounds naturally echo and reverberate) of about 110hz - the frequency of the male baritone, the second lowest singing voice. Standing waves, whereby sounds are reflected off walls and superimposed on to one another, and other acoustic curiosities, have been observed in these and other sites. Stone circles including Avebury and Stonehenge also appear to reflect sound in distinctive ways.

A little-known star about 42 light-years away is the top target for European astronomers searching for planets that might harbour life. The star, which has the rather dull designation HD 172051, is much like our own Sun but is just a little cooler.

The latest expeditions to ice caps in the high, tropical Peruvian Andes Mountains by Ohio State University scientists may shed light on a mysterious global climate change they believe occurred more than 5,000 years ago. They hope that ice cores retrieved from two tropical ice caps there, as well as ancient plants retrieved from beneath the retreating glaciers, may contain clues that could link ancient events that changed daily life in South America, Europe and Asia.

The Qafzeh Cave in Israel contains skeletal remains of modern Homo sapiens that are more than 90,000 years old, as well as more-recent signs of human occupation. Investigators now say that red ochre found in Qafzeh Cave's oldest sections supports the controversial theory that symbolic thinking, a hallmark of modern-day human thought, arose deep in the Stone Age. Archaeologists traditionally have held that the assigning of separate meanings to certain items or colours emerged no more than 50,000 years ago, with the appearance of Upper Paleolithic cultures.

A total lunar eclipse will be visible on Saturday from Europe, Africa, the Americas, and much of Asia - if the weather is kind and gives clear skies. The Moon regularly passes into the Earth's shadow and becomes dimmer. It happens about every six months or so.

The discovery of Martian-like soil in Chile's Atacama Desert could shed light on the landings of the Viking spacecraft on Mars in the 1970s. Dry and largely devoid of organic material or microbial life, the desert earth has similar chemical properties to the Red Planet's. The finding could explain why tests conducted by the Mars Viking missions raised false hopes in the search for life on another planet.

China has launched a mammoth project designed to protect hundreds of ancient tombs in the Mount Mangshan area of Luoyang city in Henan province. Archaeologists will make thorough surveys and exploration of the number and distribution of ancient tombs in thearea, using high-tech means, said Zhu Liang, head of the No. 2 Archaeological Work Team of Luoyang city, which is responsible for the current investigation and exploration. Archaeologists will also search for unknown tombs in the area, said Zhu. All data and materials obtained from the current investigation program will be used for future protection, study and excavations of ancient tombs in the area.

In a joint raid, U.S. soldiers and Iraqi policemen recovered two of the most important artifacts looted from the Iraqi National Museum following the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime, a coalition spokesman said Thursday. Both artifacts have been identified by museum authorities in Baghdad and will be returned in the next few days, Charles Heatly said. One of the two pieces, the so-called Bassetki copper statue, dating back to 2,300 B.C., depicts a man seated on the ground. It was found in a cesspool during a joint raid by U.S. Military Police and Iraqi police.

The world's most famous "lost city" - the Inca ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, found in the early 20th century - was part of a much larger complex, according to sensational new archaeological discoveries. While investigating a mountain ridge facing the Andean city, an Anglo-American expedition has discovered a previously unknown series of high-status sacred ceremonial buildings scattered over at least a square mile of jungle.

Ancient Mediterranean sailors crossed the high seas with techniques of navigation and orentation that we still haven't discovered, contrary to myths that need to be dispelled, such as that the only navigation was local coastal navigation. New evidence has appeared regarding ancient naval presence on the island of Ustica, discovered by underwater excavation last summer carried out by Giuliano Volpe, archaeology professor at the University of Foggia, supported by "Archeologia viva" and the archaeological superintendence of Palermo. According to Volpe, the material from the seabed is only attributable in a small part to shipwrecks, and is more probably earthenware that was discarded because it was broken during the trip and thrown overboard because it was useless and added weight. "Taking to the high seas," commented Volpe in a phone interview by Agenzia Italia, in anticipation of the report's release in the magazine "L'Archeologo Subacqueo," directed by him, "was safer than local coastal navigation; in this way pirates, dangerous currents, and strong coastal winds were avoided. We can deduce that ancient sailors had more advanced knowledge and naval instruments than we had thought." (AGI)

Over 400 astronomers have called on the European Space Agency (Esa) not to cancel a space mission designed to look for Earth-like planets in space. The Eddington planet search mission, as well as the lander part of a mission to Mercury, could be dropped to save cash.

Anthropologists working in Ethiopia say they've found the earliest direct evidence of a stone tool "kitchen," dating back 2.6 million years. The stone tools were found in the same site as animal bones, which the researchers said indicate the use of tools by early human to feed themselves.

Archaeologists have found a well preserved ancient female corpse, which was believed to be some 1,000 years old, in Gaochun county of Nanjing, capital of east Jiangsu Province. The discovery was made in a grave of the Song Dynasty (960-1279). Archaeologists from the Nanjing Museum said they were surprised to find that the bone joints of the body can still be bent, while its flesh is still flexible.

EVEN early humans knew a thing or two about dental hygiene. Our ancestors used grass stalks as tooth picks, experimental findings suggest. The teeth of ancient hominids commonly have curved grooves on their roots. It has been suggested that these marks were made by an implement used to pick teeth. But critics of this theory point out that the teeth of today's regular toothpick users have no such marks. Resolving this conundrum has surprisingly wide implications. Similar grooves have been found on fossil teeth dating back 1.8 million years. If the individuals made them by using toothpicks, the habit would qualify as the oldest human custom yet recorded. It could also reveal details about ancient diets and oral health. To help settle the debate, palaeontologist Leslea Hlusko of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hit upon grass stalks as likely to have left the mystery grooves. Unlike wood, grass contains large numbers of hard, abrasive silica particles.

Maverick doctor Jacques Mabit is attempting to fight one of the modern world's greatest demons by using one of the ancient world's oldest traditions. Disillusioned with modern medicine's approach to treating cocaine addiction, Mabit turned to ancient traditions in an attempt to bring a spiritual dimension to the fight against the drug. Mabit is hardly uninformed about current medical treatments, having been involved in their use himself. "The idea was the result of my experience as a medical doctor, when I saw how limited traditional treatments were...I met spiritual healers - Shamans - and realised they had resources unknown in the West."

LONDON (Reuters) - An Anglo-American team of explorers have found an Incan city lost for centuries in the Peruvian jungles despite being within sight of the key religious center at Machu Picchu. Using infrared aerial photography to penetrate the forest canopy, the team led by Briton Hugh Thomson and American Gary Zeigler located the ruins at Llactapata 50 miles northwest of the ancient Incan capital, Cusco.

The 14th century Italian poet Francesco Petrarch left hundreds of letters detailing his life and thoughts. Now scientists plan to dig up his remains to find out more about his flesh and bones. Researchers will open the poet's marble casket this month in Arqua Petrarca, a village in northern Italy where he died in 1374 and that was renamed for him. They will scrutinize his remains for clues on his physical appearance and health record.

Archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown ancient settlement on a Westcountry island while carrying out a watching brief on the construction of a new playing field. Members of Cornwall County Council's environmental and heritage services made their exciting find on Tresco in the Isles of Scilly. Commissioned by Tresco Estate, their excavation has so far uncovered the remains of five houses, other stone buildings and some walls which have survived for centuries just a few centimetres below the present ground surface.

UNESCO has awarded a German firm contract to preserve the world-famous but decaying Moai head sculptures on Easter Island, which are suffering the effects of the weather, tourism and past restoration attempts. Stefan Maar, founder of Berlin-based Maar Denkmalpflege GmbH said Tuesday his company planned to begin treating the statues with chemicals in early 2005 in a project estimated to cost about 10 million euros ($11.5 million).

Humans hotfooted it to Britain after the last ice age, scientists say. The new research, which challenges previous studies, suggests these early settlers advanced rapidly as the glaciers melted away. A team of European scientists estimated the speed and timing of human resettlement in late glacial Britain by comparing radiocarbon dated remains with ice-core climate records. Their findings, now published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, suggest a wave of migration coincided with a sudden rise in temperature and the northwards spread of herd animals such as wild horse and deer.

The Sun has unleashed its largest recorded solar flare, capping 10 days of unprecedented activity for the star. The blast sent billions of tonnes of superhot gas into space - some of it directed towards our planet. Scientists say the Sun's current spate of activity has produced the most dramatic events seen on the solar surface since regular monitoring began.

THE DAVINCI CODE has not just become a #1 bestseller, it has now claimed the title of the most controversial book released this year. Church leaders and historians have slammed the book, and author Dan Brown, for misrepresentation of history and church traditions. As would be expected, the conservative Catholic magazine ran a feature on the book, which criticised the anti-Catholic storyline: "In making phony claims of scholarship, Brown's book infects readers with a virulent hostility toward Catholicism." Meanwhile Joseph De Feo, policy analyst for the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, says that Brown is simply profiting from recent trouble in the church, claiming THE DAVINCI CODE is "...exploitative because Brown is capitalizing on an atmosphere when people will believe anything about the church.

The recent public showing of a previously un-exhibited Peking Man fossil has served to remind the world of a long-running mystery. The location was the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site Museum, 48 km southwest of Beijing. The fossil was a frontal skull fragment discovered 37 years ago. This exhibit was on show from Sept 21 to Oct 7 this year but it reawakens a mystery that has fired the imagination of the world of archaeology for more than 60 years. The frontal bone on show was discovered in 1966 by the late renowned Chinese paleoanthropologist Pei Wenzhong (1904-1982). It was Pei who discovered the first Peking Man skull. His find at Zhoukoudian in 1929 attracted worldwide attention. Thereafter, German paleoanthropologist Franz Weidenreich and Canadian anatomist Davidson Black together with Pei led several excavations at the site unearthing many Peking Man fossils including five complete skulls.

Boulder, Colo.- Scientists at the Geological Society of America annual meeting in Seattle next week are taking a comprehensive new look at drivers of human evolution. It now appears that climate variability during the Plio-Pleistocene (approximately 6 million years in duration) played a hugely important role. Astronomically controlled climate forcing on scales ranging from 20,000 to 100,000 years down to El Niños (5-7 years) made a highly unpredictable environment in which generalists with intelligence, language, and creativity were best able to adapt.

ORKNEY may have been the largest prehistoric settlement or ceremonial site in Britain, new research reveals today. Archaeologists using the latest techniques to map under the soil discovered the world heritage site covering the Ness of Brodgar in Stenness, was a massive centre of activity in Stone Age times.

As the sun edged above the horizon on Jan. 31, 2000, a dozen men boarded a bamboo raft off the east coast of the Indonesian island of Bali. Each gripped a wooden paddle and, in unison, deftly stroked the nearly 40-foot-long craft into the open sea. Their destination: the Stone Age, by way of a roughly 18-mile crossing to the neighboring island of Lombok. Project director Robert G. Bednarik, one of the assembled paddlers, knew that a challenging trip lay ahead, even discounting any time travel. Local fishing crews had told him of the Lombok Strait's fiendishly shifting currents, vicious whirlpools, and unexpected waves far from shore. No matter, Bednarik knew of no other way to demonstrate that Homo erectus, humanity's evolutionary precursor and perhaps a direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, was the world's first seafarer.

Astronomers working with telescopes atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea are studying a galaxy they say is the biggest, brightest, hottest and one of the most ancient star-forming regions yet viewed in the universe. The explosive galaxy of more than a million hot stars normally could not be examined because its stars were born so long ago and so far away. But a combination of powerful telescopes and natural "gravitational lensing" that enhances the earth's view of the object are credited for the scientific advance.

Walkers are being urged to think about when they visit the path A coast-to-coast route along Hadrian's Wall has been so popular since it opened that steps are being taken to stop it being damaged. The 84-mile trail opened earlier this year which meant for the first time in 1,600 years visitors could walk the length of the Roman wall.

In 1991, two Germans hiking in the Alps of northern Italy discovered the 5,200-year-old remains of a Copper Age man frozen in a glacier. The well-preserved corpse, dubbed "Ötzi the Iceman," was found with tools, arrows, and a knife. Since then, scientists have speculated about how the 46-year-old male died, offering scenarios from hypothermia to ritual sacrifice. Now a team of researchers has added another theory to the mix, suggesting that the Iceman died in battle.

Astronaut Ed Lu returned on Monday from a six-month tour as science officer on the international space station with loads of memories and at least one nagging puzzle: what caused the mysterious flashes of light he saw while studying the Earth's aurora from orbit? Lu, who was a research astrophysicist before becoming an astronaut in 1994, estimates that he spent 100 hours watching the northern and southern lights during half a year in space. The auroral light show, which takes place well below the station's 380km altitude, shimmers and pulses depending on natural variations in incoming solar particles trapped by the Earth's magnetic field. On three occasions - July 11, September 24 and October 12 - Lu saw something markedly different: flashes as bright as the brightest stars, which lasted only a second then blinked off again. In one instance, he called crew-mate Yuri Malenchenko over to the window to see the bursts. Lu says they appeared very different from the random but harmless retinal flashes that many astronauts experience when heavy cosmic rays hit their eyeballs.

A team of experts believes it could be close to unravelling the millennia-old myth of the Lost City of Atlantis and is launching an expedition to the seas west of Gibraltar to test its theory. The team is led by eminent pre-historian Professor Jacques Collina-Girard, aided by the two men who led the expeditions to the Titanic. They believe that using a combination of literary pointers and geological evidence they have pinned the lost city's location to just west of the Straits of Gibraltar, on a submerged mud shoal now known as Spartel Island.

Now that November is upon us Jane Sellers has kindly taken on the mantle of Author of the Month with her book 'The Death of Gods in Ancient Egypt'. Click the link below to read an exclusive essay by Jane - and then visit the Mysteries Message Board to join in the discussions.

A RARE gold sword belt ornament which could have belonged to the seventh century Saxon king, Caedwalla, has been found on an Island beach - and there could be another hidden under the sands. Discovery of the intricate gold decoration encrusted with garnets is regarded as being especially historically significant because it could have belonged to the king reputed to have put a quarter of the Island population to the sword in his attempt to convert them to Christianity. Enthusiast Darren Trickey, 21, had gone out for a few minutes with his metal detector when he came across the find of a lifetime on the beach at Bembridge.

The mysterious 5,200-year-old iceman found in an Alpine glacier was born in a valley in what is now northern Italy and didn't travel far from home, an international team of researchers has concluded. Indeed, the iceman, known as Oetzi, probably spent his whole life within about 37 miles (60 kilometers) of the spot near the Italy-Austria border where he was found frozen, according to the team led by Wolfgang Mueller of the Australian National University in Canberra.

Just in time for Halloween, a vampire-killing kit complete with a wooden stake and 10 silver bullets sold for $12,000 US at auction Thursday. The kit, a walnut box that also contained a crucifix, a pistol, a rosary and vessels for garlic powder and various serums, was bought by an anonymous phone bidder. According to Sotheby's, some experts believe that such kits were commonly available to travellers in Eastern Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries, while others think the kits were made in the early 20th century, possibly to cash in on interest in vampires sparked by the 1897 publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Many people wrongly believe that trick or treating began in the United States, but like the Hallowe'en festival itself it began as a Celtic festival. The festival of Samhain marked the end of the light half of the year and the beginning of the dark. As well as celebrating the harvest it was believed that on this night the spirits of those who had died that year walked the earth. People would extinguish fires to make their homes unwelcoming to spirits and dress up and make noises to frighten away the ghosts.

Astronomers have compiled the largest, most detailed map of the Universe so far and believe that it shows beyond doubt the presence of an all-pervading "dark energy" throughout the cosmos. The three-dimensional map contains 200,000 galaxies and covers six per cent of the sky. The furthest galaxies in the map are two billion light years away. Such maps are invaluable because the large-scale structure of the Universe reveals the interplay of cosmic forces during the last 13 billion years. The new map comes from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), an international collaboration of over 200 astronomers at 13 institutes around the world. To build the map, astronomers first identified individual galaxies on wide-angle pictures taken by the SDSS's 2.5-metre telescope at Apache Point Observatory, New Mexico.

An elaborately carved Maya altar, more than 1,200 years old, was recovered after archaeologists turned detective and joined Guatemalan police to rescue it from looters. The rescue of the 600-pound artifact gives researchers vital information on the closing years of the Maya civilization, archaeologist Arthur Demarest of Vanderbilt University said Wednesday.

The ice covering the Arctic ocean is getting thinner as summers lengthen, say British scientists. Melting seen in recent years is set to continue, they warn, with the eventual disappearance of ice during the summer months. It puts the habitat of the polar bear, which relies on the ice to hunt for seals, under increasing threat.

Chinese archeologists have claimed discovery of a New Stone Age human body that lived about 10,000 years ago in Donghulin Village in Beijing's western outskirts. The human skeleton discovered just over a week ago, dubbed Donghulin Man, was believed to be the missing link between Beijing's Upper Cave Man living approximately 30,000 years ago and the ensuing modern humans in Beijing areas.

Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne's landmark cathedral in Aachen was originally covered in bright red stucco plasterwork to make it look more Byzantine, architectural historians said Monday. Traces of plaster mixed with brick dust were found by work crews restoring the 1 200-year-old cathedral.

An ankle bone discovered in central Burma could be evidence of an ancient ancestor common to many of today's primates, including humans. The 45-million-year-old fossil has features that link it to all of the anthropoids, the grouping of human-like species such as apes and monkeys.

The Peruvian National Institute of Culture is considering limiting the daily number of visitors to the Inca citadel Machu Picchu to 500 - half the present number - the newspaper El Comercio reported yesterday as Unesco's Peruvian representative said the government had to produce a concrete plan to curb tourism damage and uncontrolled development in the world heritage site. Institute members were discussing a plan and unavailable for comment. In addition to the direct tourist damage, the town of Aguas Calientes, where tourists transfer from trains to buses within the heritage sites, is being allowed to sprawl without planning controls, Unesco's representative, Patricia Uribe, said. "Part of the problem is that there are so many institutions involved," she added.

Some say it is in the Aegean, others in the Azores, off the Celtic Ridge of Britain or even as far as the South China Sea, but an American researcher says everyone has been looking in the wrong place. Atlantis was in Cyprus and ancient philosopher Plato is about to be vindicated, according to Robert Sarmast.

Robert Bauval has posted the following message on his bulletin board: From Egypt, 27 October 2003: I have it from very reliable sources that National Geographic Channel and Dr. Zahi Hawass will do another live TV broadcast in December in an attempt to explore further the "doors" in the GP. Apparently the 'stunt' is to coincide with the launching of Hawass's latest book, a sort of autobiography of his work at Giza. Stay tuned for more.

An extinct, ape-like animal that researchers believe was a distant cousin of humans probably evolved in Asia, instead of Africa, according to a recent study. The finding suggests that anthropoid primates, a suborder including apes, monkeys and humans, evolved in Asia before radiating to Africa, where the earliest humans have been identified. Researchers made the determination after analyzing an anklebone found in the Southeast Asian country of Myanmar, formerly Burma. The 37-million-year-old bone likely belonged to an anthropoid species known as Amphipithecus, a large animal that leaped and climbed in the trees where it lived. Findings are published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Before the study, scientists were not sure if the bone belonged to an adapiform or an anthropoid primate. Though also in the ape family, the now-extinct adapiforms were more likely closely related to today's lemurs and lorises than to chimps and humans. The size, dimensions and other features of the bone make it more structurally similar to anthropoids, according to the recent study. Since this bone, and other early primate fossils, appears to come from anatomically advanced creatures, anthropoids probably originated in Asia at least 55 million years ago, about 50 million years before humans began to appear.

One of the largest known solar flares erupted from the sun on Tuesday, heralding a storm of superheated gas that could hit Earth within a day. The outburst was classified an X17.2 flare, the third largest on record, according to Paal Brekke, a project scientist with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), a sun-watching satellite mission jointly run by NASA and the European Space Agency.

The earliest seafloor hydrothermal vents - supposedly more than three billion years old - may be nothing more than deposits from underground springs active in the last few thousand years. That is the claim of two US geologists who carried out a new analysis of rocks from South Africa which were previously dated to the Archaean period - when life first began to diversify.

Three antiques dealers have been arrested in a secret police operation to combat the growing trade in artefacts stolen from Iraq. Officers from Scotland Yard's Arts and Antiques Unit have recovered a number of valuable pieces stolen from Iraqi museums and archaeological sites since 1990. It follows newly introduced United Nations laws that came into force in Britain in June which make it an offence to be knowingly involved in the importation or exportation of illegally removed Iraqi cultural property.

Judging from bronze articles unearthed from ancient tombs in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, archaeologists estimate that nomadic tribes in north Chinahad contacts with Western civilizations approximately 2,500 years ago. Local archaeologists found a bronze mirror and a bronze plate at the two ancient tomb sites in Liangcheng county which can be traced back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.) and theWarring States Period (475-221 B.C.), which they believed could not be the work of ancient northern peoples in China.

A children's choir and a military band greeted the return Sunday of a what scholars believe is a royal mummy - possibly Ramses I - that was looted from a tomb and smuggled out of Egypt by a Canadian doctor nearly 150 years ago. The Michael Carlos Museum at Emory University in Atlanta, which bought the mummy three years ago from a museum in Ontario, returned the relic after determining it may be the founder of the 19th Dynasty and grandfather of Ramses II.

Greece will seek an investigation into the provenance of thousands of antiquities believed to have been placed in storage abroad by a controversial British antiquities dealer, the government said yesterday. This followed the publication in the Sunday Eleftherotypia of a report that Greek antiquities could be among an estimated 17,000 ancient artifacts stored in over 30 locations in different countries by Robin Symes, who has been linked with antiquities illegally excavated and exported from Italy.

Based on the study of eclipses and planetary positions mentioned in six printed versions of the epic, a scientist at the Indian Institute of Science claims the events referred to in the Mahabharat occurred between 1493 and 1443 BC. This claim disputes the earlier known dates of the event, which is believed to have occurred in the Dwapara Yuga between 3100 and 3000 BC based on historical and archeological evidence.

For more than two millennia, many of the world's greatest adventurers, explorers and thinkers have sought the fabled Lost City of Atlantis. Next month, an expedition to hunt for its remains among submerged Gibraltarian islands will be unveiled at the Royal Geographical Society, London, by a renowned geologist, Prof Jacques Collina-Girard, and the leaders of the Titanic expeditions.

In a storeroom of the Michigan Historical Museum, state archaeologist John Halsey examined the newly acquired artifacts purported to be the remnants of an ancient Middle Eastern civilization that settled in Michigan thousands of years ago. He pointed to the pictures engraved on slate tablets, telling stories from the Old Testament. Here's God directing Adam to the Garden of Eden. Here's Eve. Here's the apple tree. Here's God banishing them from the Garden. Here's Moses with the Ten Commandments. And here's a scene depicting the crucifixion of Christ. But, wait a minute, how did that get in there? "If you're going to tell an Old Testament story," Halsey said, "Jesus shouldn't be there." It's one of many indications the so-called "Michigan Relics," once hailed as the greatest archaeological discoveries since Pompeii, are fakes.

Science backed up religion this week in a study that suggests life may have indeed sprung from clay -- just as many faiths teach. A team at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said they had shown materials in clay were key to some of the initial processes in forming life.

Europe is stepping up its preparations for the launch of a space craft designed to chase and land on a comet. The Rosetta mission was scrubbed at the last minute in January because of problems with the Ariane rocket system that would have launched it from Earth.

A day after SCI FI Channel announced its unprecedented support for legal action against the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to release its records on the 1965 UFO incident in Kecksburg, PA, NASA informed Lee Helfrich, attorney for the Coalition for Freedom of Information (CFi), that it is releasing 36 pages of documents connected to the incident. After ten months of pursuing the records in Washington, D.C. through the Freedom of Information Act, NASA has finally responded to public pressure. The Department of Defense and the U.S. Army have yet to release any records. "For more than four months we have received no response from NASA," said Lee Helfrich of DC based Lobel, Novins and Lamont, "but one day after John Podesta, President Clinton's former chief of staff and member of the Moynihan Commission, and Bonnie Hammer, President of SCI FI Channel, called on government agencies to make public records that are over 25 years old, lo and behold, NASA responds."

As Atlanta's hometown airline, Delta Air Lines (NYSE: DAL) is proud to help Emory University's Michael C. Carlos Museum transport the mummy of Pharaoh Ramesses I to his ancestral home in Egypt. Delta Air Logistics, Delta's cargo division, will ship Ramesses aboard Flight 22, its daily Boeing 777 service from Atlanta to Paris-Charles de Gaulle. Ramesses will travel as high-priority, Variation - Art freight in the belly of the aircraft and will be transferred in Paris to SkyTeam Cargo partner Air France, which will provide connecting transportation to Cairo on Flight 528, also a Boeing 777.

On a hillside in the badlands of Ethiopia, an ancestral home of the human family, an international team of scientists has uncovered the earliest known stone tools to be found mixed with fragments of fossilized animal bones. The scientists think the material, almost 2.6 million years old, is the strongest evidence yet that the primal technology was used to butcher animal carcasses for meat and marrow. The discovery could go a long way toward resolving a debate in paleoanthropology: which came first, a significant advance in the brain that enabled human ancestors to make tools, or the toolmaking ability that led to an enriched diet and then an evolutionary change in the brain?

rchaeological investigations near Nazareth--Jesus' boyhood home --have revealed that the area was a major cult center 8,000 years before the time of Christ. Excavations at Kibbutz Kfar HaHoresh, less than two miles from the town center, have so far unearthed strangely decorated human skulls and evidence for unusual, complex burials. "This is the first example in the Levant of a purely religious complex from this remote period," says excavation director Nigel Goring-Morris of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "This is a totally new type of site." The cult center seems to have serviced the religious needs of villagers a few miles away.

Wrapped in clear nylon, a mummy that museum curators here believe to be Rameses I, pharaoh of Egypt from 1293 B.C. to 1291 B.C., is returning to Egypt after more than a century in the United States. Dr. Zahi Hawass, general director of the Supreme Council on Antiquities in Egypt, accepted the remains on Friday as a gift from the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University here. The museum bought the mummy in 1999 from a Niagara Falls freak-show collection.

A tiny round worm can live six times longer than normal if certain genes and hormones are tweaked, according to a report in the journal Science. The worms - Caenorhabditis elegans - had a metabolic hormone inhibited and their reproductive systems removed. They went on to stay healthy and active for a human equivalent of 500 years, which is the longest life-span extension ever achieved by scientists. Researchers say some of these findings may hold true for mammals.

A remote rainforest in Sulawesi, Indonesia is now at the centre of a study into hundreds of mysterious stone carvings that only a few foreigners in the world have seen. No one knows who built them or why, but the "megaliths" are believed to be built anywhere from 500 to 2,000 years ago. There are over 400 pieces scattered around the rainforest. Till now, nobody has been able to find the tools that carved them, or any clues to who could have built them. These carvings include birds that laugh like humans and primates three inches high, but the most mind-boggling of them all are the statues that locals say were once humans. (read more) Local legends tell of criminals long ago turned to stone but beyond that, little is known about the megaliths of Central Sulawesi.

Imminent disruption is predicted for satellites, power systems and even mobile phones because of a solar storm. It comes from one of the largest groups of sunspots seen for years. On Thursday superhot gas erupted above them. The event, called a Coronal Mass Ejection, sent 10 billion tonnes of superhot gas speeding towards Earth. As well as communication blackouts, aurorae - polar lights - may be seen from mid-latitudes as the gas arrives.

It was a funny little chap, different from the rest, so Ross Fargher, a Flinders Ranges station owner with a keen eye for fossils, did what any Australian would - left it on the back veranda. Four years later, the South Australian Museum believes Mr Fargher's fossil may be the oldest vertebrate ever found, a missing link between the shapeless cellular life that oozed across the seabed and the eventual emergence of the animal kingdom. Along its back runs a stiffening rod, the critical differentiation between multicellular blobs and what ultimately became man.

For decades, scholars have debated whether the eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean more than 3,000 years ago brought about the mysterious collapse of Minoan civilization at the peak of its glory. The volcanic isle (whose remnants are known as Santorini) lay just 110 kilometers from Minoan Crete, so it seemed quite reasonable that its fury could have accounted for the fall of that celebrated people. This idea suffered a blow in 1987 when Danish scientists studying cores from the Greenland ice cap reported evidence that Thera exploded in 1645 B.C., some 150 years before the usually accepted date.

A German research team has unravelled the mystery of how the ancient Egyptians mummified their dead, using sophisticated science to track the preservative to an extract of the cedar tree. Chemists from Tuebingen University and the Munich-based Doerner-Institut replicated an ancient treatment of cedar wood and found it contained a preservative chemical called guaiacol.

Archaeologists have found a large number of cliff carvings in the mountainous areas of the Alxa Right Banner in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Over 800 vivid and life-like pictures, depicting people and animals, as well as scenes of hunting, battles and sacrificial rites are carved or engraved on the rocks, dating back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) and the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).

A shopkeeper running a small souvenir business in Nazareth has made a sensational discovery that could dramatically rewrite the history of Christianity. Elias Shama's small souvenir shop in Nazareth, the town of Jesus's childhood, barely catches the eye. Tourists usually pass by it on their way to the neighbouring Mary's Well church, claimed by the Greek Orthodox church as the site where the Archangel Gabriel revealed to Mary that she was carrying the son of God.