Newsdesk Archive

The wine you buy in the coming years could have had a helping hand from space technology. Europe's wine growers are turning to satellites to help them get them come up with the perfect vintage. Satellites from the European Space Agency (ESA) are being used to beam back images of vineyards which can provide vital information about the geology of a wine-growing area. "The analysis of different pieces of land will help us see if there are specialised areas where certain species of grape will grow better," explained ESA's Luigi Fusco.

A water-borne chemical is causing oysters to develop into hermaphrodites, which cannot breed, according to British scientists. The pollutant could affect other marine life and further research is needed to find out if it can harm people, say ecologists at the University of London. The substance, nonylphenol - a breakdown product of spermicides, cosmetics and detergents - is discharged through the sewerage system and is widespread in the aquatic environment. It is a so-called endocrine disruptor - a chemical that can mimic hormones and disrupt normal sexual development.

UK astronomers say they have unlocked one of the Universe's oldest secrets - the origin of cosmic space dust. Cardiff University and Royal Observatory Edinburgh scientists found that some stars throw out huge quantities of this dust when they explode. These explosions could be responsible for the Universe's first ever solid particles, they say in the journal Nature. The scientists used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in Hawaii to make their discovery.

MIRPURKHAS: The government has decided to hand over all the archaeological sites and museums in the country to the respective provincial governments. Secretary Culture and Tourism Sindh Gul Muhammad Umrani stated this while talking to The News on Sunday. He confirmed that federal department of archaeology will hand over the control of all the archaeological sites and museums in the country. A committee, comprising representation from all the four provinces, has been formed to finalise the matter, Umrani informed. "However, only two world heritage sites, Makli at Thatta and Moenjodaro at Larkana, will remain under federal archaeology department's control," Umrani said, adding that Director Tourism Sindh Ghulam Akbar Leghari was appointed as representative from Sindh for the committee.

The Aeolian archipelago is permeated by a sense of antiquity, myth and legend. Such myths often overlap with the ancient history of the islands, which get their name from Aeolus, the Greek god of the winds. In the Odyssey, Homer tells of an island (or group of islands) where a king called Aeolus reigned. According to Homer, Aeolus welcomed Odysseus to his islands and was very entertained by the traveler's adventurous anecdotes, so much that he gave him a sealed jar containing all the winds that are bad for navigation, telling him not to open it.

BRUSSELS, July 15 (Reuters) - Belgian maritime researchers said on Tuesday they had discovered the preserved wreck of a 17th century merchant ship off the coast of Belgium. The 30-metre ship had run aground on a sandbank around 17 kilometres (10.5 miles) from the town of Nieuwpoort in Belgian waters. It was well preserved because it was covered by sand. "Only the nave and the turret of a gun are visible," said Dirk Callebaut, a spokesman for the Institute for Archaeological Heritage, announcing the discovery.

The Bush administration is considering privatizing archaeological oversight of hundreds of national parks and landmarks and firing the National Park Service archaeologists who for decades have been charged with protecting their historic value and cultural heritage. The administration says turning over the archaeology jobs to private contractors could save money, but critics charge that contractors are ill-equipped to cope with an array of endemic challenges, including influential outsiders trying to dictate Park policy, chronic congressional underfunding and serious personnel shortages that Park Service archaeologists mitigate by using thousands of volunteers -- an option not open to a private company.

The company which created Dolly the cloned sheep is to cull hundreds of the animals after trials of a new treatment for lung disorders were shelved. PPL Therapeutics has been in difficulty since its transgenic (genetically modified) sheep programme was put on hold by the firm's German backers. The company, based at Roslin, near Edinburgh, said it can no longer afford to look after the 3,000-strong flock but it will keep some of the original sheep for future breeding programmes. In June, the company announced that it would have to lay off between 90 and 140 staff after the project to commercialise recombinant Alpha-1 Antitrypsin (AAT) - a medicine to help lung disorders made from the milk of genetically modified sheep - was halted.

Climate change could imperil the unique creatures which have made their home in the inhospitable waters of Antarctica, scientists believe. The sealife which has developed there resembles some life forms around North America and Europe millions of years ago. But global warming could allow predators from warmer seas to colonise the Antarctic. If that happens, a highly sensitive sea floor community could vanish, the scientists say. The warning comes from Professor Rich Aronson, of Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Alabama, US, and colleagues, in a paper presented to a London conference.

The first ever map of the neutrino sky has been produced by a novel telescope encased in ice at the South Pole. From beneath the Antarctic ice, astronomers have been able to detect neutrinos - particles that trace the most violent events in the cosmos - many of them yet to be explained. Sensors in the ice have detected the rare and fleeting flashes of light caused when neutrinos interact with the ice. Researchers say it is just the beginning of opening a new window on the Universe. Past experience has shown them that when they do that they find many surprises.

The Caribbean skies will host a rare spectacle tonight when the Moon eclipses Mars. The event comes as a prelude to the red planet's closest Earth approach in 60,000 years. Onlookers in Florida, Central America and northwestern South America should see the bright red dot of Mars disappear behind the Moon's much larger disc in the early hours of Thursday morning. In Panama City the effect - called an occultation - will last around 90 minutes. Viewers elsewhere will see a shorter eclipse. In Miami, for example, Mars will disappear at 4:14 am EDT, reappearing 27 minutes later. But those on the edge of the zone stand to see the best show. Mars will seem to graze the Moon as the two glide past one another. A telescope will reveal the ruby glow of Mars as it peeps between the lunar mountains.

WOODS HOLE -- In late June, after an all-nighter of furious last-minute soldering and tweaking, David Mindell, the director of MIT's DeepArch research group, and three of his doctoral students head down to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth. They're there for a final real-water test of the ocean-floor positioning technology they've developed. Later this summer, the devices will help provide unprecedented views of ancient shipwrecks buried in layers of sediment more than a thousand feet underwater, too deep for human divers to explore. After the tests are completed, the equipment will be shipped to the Mediterranean for a six-week research voyage led by Robert Ballard, the discoverer of the wreck of the Titanic. A team of oceanographers, archeologists, and engineers will be using the equipment to scan in detail two Phoenician vessels dating back to 800 BC, the oldest known shipwrecks in the world. Mindell's imaging innovations are part of an ongoing technological revolution affecting how archeology is being performed. Picks and shovels are being replaced by robotic arms and computer screens, and remotely operated vehicles are allowing access to places humans couldn't reach otherwise: Archeologists need not be physically present.

London's Natural History Museum is famous for its fossilized dinosaurs and giant replica whales, but behind the scenes, museum staff are focusing on organisms less likely to pull the crowds. Elm trees, mosses, and river flies are among the plants and animals causing them concern. And in looking at ways to conserve declining populations they're appealing to 100,000 amateur naturalists for help. "Sharing knowledge and expertise is essential for us to maximize our efforts to conserve the U.K.'s wildlife," said Johannes Vogel, who is coordinating the Natural History Museum's Amateurs as Experts project. "We want to bring the full wealth of amateur and professional knowledge together."

The following is a release by the United States Geological Survey, National Earthquake Information Center: A major earthquake occurred 635 km (395 miles) NW of Diego Garcia, Chagos Archipelago at 2:27 PM MDT, Jul 15, 2003 (Jul 16 at 1:27 AM local time. The magnitude and location may be revised when additional data and further analysis results are available. This earthquake is located in a remote area and no damage or casualties are expected.

After two years of Mr. John Wall hounding 'alternative authors' on the Internet, it is only fair that the 'alternative authors' (as well as the public) turn the table a little. To begin with, let us ask who exactly is John Wall? And, more importantly, how does he find the time to spend so many hours on the Internet? Here's some data that may help. Below are the digitised images of the Rushmoor Borough Council (Herts) 'Empress Conservatives' Website. Can someone figure out what exactly John Wall does there?... Is he a full-time paid employee of the Council? Or part-time? Or what...? As we said in a previous posting, Mr. Wall has posted over 16,000 messages in less than 2 years on the Maat Message board, and also a few thousands on other Message Boards. So let's round this to 20,000. Let's be 'conservative' (excuse the pun) and assume only 3 minutes per message on average. We thus have an estimated 60,000 minutes = 1000 hours. If we take an 8 hours working day, this gives us 125 days (NB: There exists, of course, a full record of all his 16,000 messages at Maat which can be viewed in the archives of the Maat Message Board). From these one can easily determine the date and time all these messages were sent. Is there a mathematician/statitistician among you who can work out how many messages were written during normal working hours?...

TUCSON (AP) -- Except on Indian reservations, more prehistoric sites and artifacts from the first century through the mid-1400s are believed to be in the town of Oro Valley than anywhere else in Pima County. But local archaeologists, two Indian tribes and officials at Arizona State Museum -- whose mission is to preserve Indian artifacts -- are worried that the town isn't doing enough to protect undiscovered Hohokam cultural artifacts in Oro Valley.

Kendrapara, July 14. (PTI): In one of the important archaeological discoveries in recent years, the Archaeologial Survey of India (ASI) has discovered a number of Buddhist treasures of significance from the Udayagiri monastery in Jajpur district. The discoveries included a stupa, a 70-metre-long rock-built pathway and potteries of various shapes and forms. Archaeologists were of the view that these newly-discovered monuments dated back to 5th to 12th century AD when Buddhism spread in the region and had its glorious period.

A Hungarian archaeological team in Abu Sir, west Alexandria, recently unearthed five gold coins and a gold bracelet dating back to the Byzantine age (4th century AD). The coins have been taken to the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria to be prepared for display. Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni, who is also man of Antiquities Authority, said that the artifacts were found in the area known as Tabo Osoris Magna, founded by Ptolemy II ( 282-246 BC), 45 kilometers to the west of Alexandria. The original temple in this city was dedicated to the cult of Isis and was later converted into a fortress in the Roman era.

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has greatly amplified the cries of fraud leveled against a purported first-century inscription that names Jesus. The IAA stated in June that the stone box on which the inscription appears was ancient but the words on it appear to have been inscribed in modern times. In a word: hoax. Defenders of the inscription's authenticity have been fighting back, saying other experts disagree and arguing that everyone should at least wait to evaluate the IAA's full scientific report, which isn't out yet.

A consignment of thousands of rubber ducks is expected to wash up any day on the coast of New England - after more than a decade at sea. The ducks - along with other bathtub toys like beavers, turtles and frogs - fell overboard from a container ship en route from China to Seattle during a storm in 1992. During the ducks' long voyage through three oceans, scientists have tracked their progress - and say it has taught them valuable lessons about surface currents. "The ducks went around the North Pacific in three years - all the way from the spill site to Alaska, over to Japan and back to North America," said Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a retired oceanographer based in Seattle.

Fossilized remains of a fish supper have revealed a hitherto unknown Roman trade route. Genetic analysis shows that 1400-year-old catfish unearthed in an ancient Turkish city probably came from Egypt. The fossils were found among the mountain-top ruins at Sagalassos, 110 kilometres inland from Turkey's southern Mediterranean coast. Catfish (Clarias gariepinus) are not native this region. In AD600 Sagalassos was a hub of Greco-Roman culture, agriculture and export. "The catfish was probably a delicacy for aristocrats," says the director of the dig Marc Waelkens from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. Romans may also have imported these and other exotic fish to stock their decorative pools - Waelkens and his colleagues found Nile perch (Lates niloticus) and African tilapia (Tilapia zillii) at the site too.

For the past 50 million years the Pacific Plate has slowly crept over a stationary plume of magma deep in the Earth's mantle, allowing the formation of a chain of islands that today comprise the most remote, large scale coral reef ecosystem on the planet. The region, known as the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, stretches 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) towards Asia from the main Hawaiian Islands and is home to a thriving marine ecosystem full of unique, or endemic, species. Many of the corals, fishes, sea birds, and mammals that are found there are found nowhere else in the world.

Physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have precisely measured the masses of nuclear isotopes that exist for only fractions of a second or can only be produced in such tiny amounts as to be almost nonexistent in the laboratory. Some isotopes had their masses accurately measured for the first time. The results help explain the characteristic X-ray spectrum and luminosities of strange astronomical objects called "X-ray bursters." X-ray bursters comprise a normal star and a neutron star. Neutron stars are as massive as our sun but collapsed to 10 miles across. The neutron star's ferocious gravitational field pulls gas from its companion until the neutron star's surface ignites in a runaway fusion reaction. For a few tens of seconds, the light from the explosion may be the most brilliant source of X-rays in the sky.

Like a Boy's Own adventure serial, Empires of the Plain begins with a moment of suspense: "Henry Rawlinson was hanging by his arms, watched in horror by his two companions..." As Lesley Adkins tells the story, once pulled to safety, Rawlinson - Victorian adventurer and man of letters - calmly went on with his task of copying the immense inscription cut into the sheer rock face of a mountain in Bisitun (now part of Iran). But then, Rawlinson wasn't used to hanging around. After joining the East India Company in 1827 as a strapping 16-year-old, Rawlinson rapidly set about living up to his childhood nickname: "The General". A first posting to Bombay was swiftly followed by military and diplomatic successes throughout India and Persia, and a promotion to the rank of major that went some way to satisfying a character he described at the time, with a swagger of the pen, as "one of restless, insatiable ambition".

Marie Smith knows that her language - the Alaskan tongue of Eyak - will die with her. And she mourns its passing. "If you were expecting a little baby, and it went back to its home so that it wasn't born alive, how would you feel?" says Smith, 85, who moved to Anchorage from her tribal home on Prince William Sound in 1973. A fisherman's daughter, Smith grew up with Eyak, a branch of the Athabaskan-Tlingit family of languages spoken for 3,000 years in Cordova, along the Copper River. But she stopped speaking Eyak when she attended government schools. Neither her children nor grandchildren know the language.

T. C. Skeat devoted his life to ancient, classical and biblical literature. After studies at Christ's College, Cambridge, and a spell at the British School of Archaeology in Athens, he worked from 1931 at the British Museum, rising to Keeper of Manuscripts and Egerton Librarian. After retirement in 1972 he continued writing and publishing on palaeography. Early in his career as librarian, two momentous acquisitions put Theodore Skeat's name in the public arena. He helped H. Idris Bell edit a newly purchased apocryphal gospel now known as the Egerton 2 Papyrus, but then published under the title Fragments of an Unknown Gospel (1935). This collection of hitherto unknown sayings of Jesus caused great public interest. As these fragments are probably the oldest Christian writing extant, the publication has maintained its popularity and influence.

Anuradhapura was the ancient Sinhalese Buddhist Kingdom of Sri Lanka. Its historical and archaeological remains, symbolise a culture which pervaded Mahameghavana which includes the Mahavihara Complex. The origin of Anuradhapura is very obscure as it is interwoven with myths and legends. The tradition as found in our Chronicles says that Anuradha, a minister of Vijaya was responsible for the establishment of the first human settlements and the name Anuradhagama (later Anuradhapura) was named after him. Another legend says Anuradha, a brother of Baddakachchana, a Queen of Panduwasdeva, built a tank and a palace and was responsible for the setting up of human settlements and the city was named after him. Another legend supports the astrological significance of the term Anuradha and connects it to the origin of the city of Anuradhapura.

A big expansion in the amount of electricity generated from offshore wind power is due to be announced by the government. Licenses are being issued for thousands of turbines to be built off the British coast to generate as much energy as around six nuclear power stations. It will also make a major contribution to the government's targets for renewable energy and create up to 20,000 jobs. It is the biggest single step taken to increase the amount of electricity produced without polluting the atmosphere, BBC environment correspondent Tim Hirsch said.

A mission of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) at Deir el-Mogamaa monastery area in Luxor discovered a significant archaeological find that included grounds and walls most likely of Virgin Mary church, one of the four Churches used to be annexed to the monastery. The other three were the churches of Saint George, Saint John and Angel Michael. SCA Secretary General Zahi Hawass said that the mission found the court of the church and an entrance leading to the altar, in addition to two cellars and four small square and rectangular chambers.

Climate modelers, like painters and surfers, sometimes find themselves pondering the evanescent splendor of whitecap-tipped waves. Ocean bubbles absorb greenhouse gases and release aerosols of organic particles--crucial environmental processes that lack detail in today's climate simulations because of a dearth of realistic data on the nature of bubbles. But the models should soon improve: Grant Deane and Dale Stokes, oceanographers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, have documented for the first time the number and sizes of ocean bubbles, as well as the exact mechanism of how they form and break up.

San Francisco: After a thorough check with all its scientific officers and regional offices throughout the US over two days, a NASA spokesperson has denied it had invited Hira Ratan Manek in any official capacity, or that it has anything to do with him. Recent news reports had stated that Manek, a 64-year-old mechanical engineer, who claims he has not eaten in eight years and lives on water and solar energy, had been invited by NASA to New York to show them how it was done.

By Greg M. Orme and Peter K. Ness (In consultation with Sir Arthur C. Clarke): Following publication of our paper in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, the following summer on Mars revealled more "spider" images. With nearly two full summer seasons of the spiders, we are able to test many of the observations put forward in our first paper. To this end, we have compiled a table of spider photos in seasonal order beginning in early spring and ending in late autumn. The table shows that some spider areas are highly imaged. We separate these areas into clusters so that they can be more closely examined. Two main clusters are considered. They are shown in the context of wide-angle THEMIS images and MOLA maps. We present information on seasonal temperatures to show how temperature is correlated with spider positions. Although we do not know what the spiders are at this stage of the investigation, it is possible to say what they are not based on inferred properties, interpretation of physical laws, and comparisons to known geological formations. Additional evidence is support of our arguments can be found on our web site at http://www.martianspiders.com/illustrations.htm.

Precise determination of strontium in bone material now makes it possible to distinguish between friend and foe on neolithic battlefields. A team of researchers at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, has succeeded in using this sophisticated method to analyse skeleton finds. The interdisciplinary project, supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), has opened the way for fascinating reconstructions of prehistoric events. Strontium (Sr) is a chemical element that builds up in the bones and tooth enamel as food is digested. In nature, Sr occurs in a variety of forms (isotopes) which differ according to the number of particles in the atomic nucleus. The 87Sr und 86Sr isotopes are important for the classification of bone material.

Chinese archaeologists have unearthed an intact skeleton at a Neolithic site in Dongguan City of south China's Guangdong Province. Experts say that the 5,000-year-old skeleton, positioned face-up with limbs extended was a male inhabitant of the Pearl River delta in the central-south part of Guangdong. Chinese archaeologists have unearthed an intact skeleton at a Neolithic site in Dongguan City of south China's Guangdong Province.

In 1706, Paul Lucas, traveling in southwest Turkey on a mission for the court of Louis XIV, came upon the mountaintop ruins of Sagalassos. The first Westerner to see the site, Lucas wrote that he seemed to be confronted with remains of several cities inhabited by fairies. Later, during the mid-nineteenth century, William Hamilton described it as the best preserved ancient city he had ever seen. Toward the end of that century, Sagalassos and its theater became famous among students of classical antiquity. Yet large scale excavations along the west coast at sites like Ephesos and Pergamon, attracted all the attention. Gradually Sagalassos was forgotten...until a British-Belgian team led by Stephen Mitchell started surveying the site in 1985.

A message conveyed by word of mouth not only holds respect, but carries special significance for historians who hunt for the undocumented stories from the past. The Zayed Centre for Heritage and History has taken up this painstaking chore to preserve the bits and pieces of history hitherto conveyed verbally for future generations. The centre's project has unleashed a nationwide hunt for senior citizens whose lives are a testament to the traditions, culture, society and daily life in the days before economic development got into full swing.

Work has started on restoring a forgotten jewel of Pakistan's architectural history. The Shish Mahal is the original palace of love - a place whose rooms glitter in a galaxy of light cast by thousands of intricately cut and multi-coloured mirrors. But after centuries of looting, neglect and termite erosion, the Palace of Mirrors is falling down. Now, with the help of a grant of nearly $1m from the United Nation's educational and cultural organisation, Unesco, restoration work is underway. The palace was built in the imposing surroundings of Lahore Fort by the wealthy Moghul emperor Shahjahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

About 2,000 professional astronomers from around the world are gathering in Australia for two weeks of debate about the state of the universe. Their meeting, which begins in Sydney on Sunday, is the 25th general assembly of the International Astronomical Union. Much of the conference will deal not so much with what lies in the stars, but what lies between them - the so-called dark matter of outer space which makes up the biggest proportion of the universe that can't be seen with normal telescopes. Closer to earth, scientists will discuss progress in exploring the planets, the search for inter-terrestrial life and the European projects to build what could become the world's biggest optical telescope in the mountains of Chile and a giant radio telescope in western Australia.

Farouk Hosni, Minister of Culture, his Italian counterpart and Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Antiquities, will take part in the cultural celebration the Italian government will hold Saturday 12-7, 2003 at the national museum in the city of Sardinia marking the publishing of 'Luxor, the City of Antiquities and History' book. Dr. Hawass stated that the book had been prepared by the Italian part and will be distributed in all over the world in ten different languages .

One of the most identifiable nebulae in the sky, the Horsehead Nebula in Orion, is part of a large, dark, molecular cloud. Also known as Barnard 33, the unusual shape was first discovered on a photographic plate in the late 1800s. The red glow originates from hydrogen gas predominantly behind the nebula, ionized by the nearby bright star Sigma Orionis. The darkness of the Horsehead is caused mostly by thick dust, although the lower part of the Horsehead's neck casts a shadow to the left. Streams of gas leaving the nebula are funneled by a strong magnetic field. Bright spots in the Horsehead Nebula's base are young stars just in the process of forming.

By Robert Bauval: TALISMAN, as you all know by now, is a book co-authored by Graham Hancock and myself. The final draft has been completed last month, and the text is now in the hands of our publishers, Penguin Books. TALISMAN will be published in May 2004. Only a few people have read the manuscript so far including, of course, our editor at Penguin Books and our Literary Agent. Bearing this in mind, and also the fact that the book will not be available to the reviewing press until at least March/April 2004, then somethings pretty weird and somewhat disturbing are taking place at this stage.... It has come to our attention that a group of 'debunkers' are mounting a sort of pre-emtive strike against TALISMAN. They are already making contact with well-known 'debunkers' and also with debunking organisations such as CSICOP. Amazingly, they are using the 'blurb' for TALISMAN which we have already posted on the Internet in order to pass into 'review' the book at this early stage. This is most irregular. We have noted several vitriolic attacks already posted on the Internet, and whenever an opportunity comes to smear the book or us (the authors), these people make sure they do not miss it.

Trees in the last remaining tract of Europe's original forest are being cut down, to the dismay of Polish naturalists. The trees are in the Bialowieza forest, in some respects a treasure comparable to the Amazon rainforest. The official in charge says he is saddened by the government's acquiescence in the felling. Polish conservationists are demanding European Union pressure to halt the destruction. Although the trees concerned are infested with insects, they say, the forest's antiquity means it should be left entirely to nature.

Britain has the highest frequency of tornadoes, or twisters, over its land surface of any country in Europe, a report confirms. The figures also show that the number of tornadoes in Europe each year could be around seven times greater than previously thought. The UK experiences an estimated 50 tornadoes on land each year, putting it top of the European twister league. The Netherlands is in second place, with an estimated 35 twisters each year over its comparatively small land area.

On a hot summer's day, two British adventurers endure Arctic temperatures inside an environmental chamber at the Boscombe Down airfield in Wiltshire. Clad in a space suit over five layers of clothing, balloon pilots Colin Prescot and Andy Elson are down to -50 Celsius. They are midway through a dress rehearsal for a balloon flight that will take them to the fringes of space. If they succeed with the real thing, they will break the World Balloon Altitude record held by the United States for 40 years. The equipment the pair is testing is visible through a small window on the side of the chamber.

The commercial growing of genetically modified crops would bring little short-term benefit to the British economy, a government report has said. The first of three major reports into biotech plants says only a narrow range of existing GM crops is suited to British conditions. The report from the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit says the lack of demand for the GM foods from shoppers is likely to limit the extent to which farmers grow the controversial new varieties.

More gardeners today are turning to the moon for sage advice on the best time to plant, prune, weed, and harvest. The practice, known as moon or lunar gardening, is cultivating a cult following. "Lunar gardening is the oldest form of gardening known to man," said RJ Harris, the head gardener at a private estate near Cornwall, England, and author of a book on the subject. The practice centers on the moon's gravitational effect on the flow of moisture in soil and plants and, to a lesser degree, the effect of moonlight on seed germination.

Four mountaineers in the high steppes of northern Tibet and northeastern China have located the key calving ground of the chiru, a rare Tibetan antelope. Poachers have decimated the chiru populations to supply the black market trade in shahtoosh, which is among the world's most expensive wools and is 25 percent finer then cashmere. The mountain mission may help restore the species. "This was the last major missing piece in the natural history of these animals," said Rick Ridgeway, 53, a climber from Ojai, California, and the leader of the quest, sponsored by the National Geographic Society Expeditions Council.

If you had x-ray vision, the center regions of our Galaxy would not be hidden from view by the immense cosmic dust clouds opaque to visible light. Instead, the Milky Way toward Sagittarius might look something like this stunning mosaic of images from the orbiting Chandra Observatory. Pleasing to look at, the gorgeous false-color representation of the x-ray data shows high energy x-rays in blue, medium energies in green, and low energies in red. Hundreds of white dwarf stars, neutron stars, and black holes immersed in a fog of multimillion-degree gas are included in the x-ray vista. Within the white patch at the image center lies the Galaxy's central supermassive black hole

SANTIAGO, Chile, (Reuters) -- Chilean scientists said on Friday their study of a huge blob of flesh found on a Pacific beach about three weeks ago concluded it was the carcass of a sperm whale, ending speculation of a giant octopus. Scientists have been baffled by the 40-foot-long (12-meter) mass of gelatinous tissue found on a remote beach in southern Chile, with initial hunches ranging from whale blubber to a disputed species of giant octopus. Researchers at the Museum of Natural History in Santiago were the first to reach a conclusion after analyzing samples of the decaying specimen and finding glands of a sperm whale.

There may be more planets in our galaxy than previously realised, say astronomers. It is a far-reaching conclusion based on the discovery of just one planet in a location where it was not expected. The new planet formed around a star in a so-called globular cluster - a swarm of ancient stars once thought unlikely to have any planets in orbit about them. Through a series of remarkable encounters with other stars, the new planet, along with its now dying parent star, have been propelled into a region of space where they have finally been observed.

One of the Earth's richest zones, the tropical forest canopy, is the target of a new scientific initiative. The organisers plan a network of treetop observatories to provide unrivalled insight into life high above the forest floor. They say this will hugely increase their knowledge of forest life and climate change. But they fear the canopy is being destroyed faster than any other habitat. The Global Canopy Programme (GCP) is launching its campaign, A 20:20 Vision For Canopy Science, on 11 July at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, UK.

Something unexpected is happening on distant Pluto - the outermost planet. Although it is receding from the Sun, its atmosphere is getting thicker, puzzling astronomers who expect it to "freeze-out" and contract in about 10 years. The recent changes were noted as a result of a rare cosmic alignment last year. Pluto passed in front of two faint stars whose light was dimmed by its atmosphere before being cut-off by its disc. Data from these events indicate that Pluto's tenuous atmosphere has become swelled in the past 14 years since the last time such an occultation was observed.

The Temple of Hatshepsut is the best preserved of the three temples in Deir Al Bahari, a religious site on the west bank of the Nile in Luxor. The temple, built by architect and chief steward Sesenmut, consists of three colonnaded terraces and is decorated with reliefs depicting the divine birth of the queen and scenes of her trade mission to the Land of Punt. But the queen's shrine was not found in the temple, but stones from the red granite sarcophagus of Hatshebsut were found on the site of the Karnak Temple, and thereby hangs a tale.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq have seized 5,000-year-old artifacts from a suspected smuggler and recovered 12 pieces stolen from a Baghdad museum, the U.S. military said Thursday. Two potential buyers were arrested following Monday's raid. An Iraqi archaeologist dated the pre-Sumerian artifacts -- miniature statues, a skull and a clay bowl -- to between 3,200 and 3,000 B.C., the military said in a statement.

AMATEUR archaeologists may have found Britain's most northerly ancient Roman artefact, it emerged yesterday. The fibula, or brooch, which has been dated to between 50BC and 50AD, could have belonged to an islander returning to the area around Norwick on Shetland after serving in the Roman army. The archaeologists made the find when they were called in after bulldozers unearthed items while extending the graveyard at Norwick. It is highly unusual to find Roman goods so far north and the item gives a revealing insight into trade routes and social mobility at the time.

In the last few weeks I have received many e-mails from art historians in the United States expressing outrage at the Berlin Museum's astonishing insolence in briefly fusing the beautiful painted bust of Nefertiti to a modern bronze nude body. One scholar, highly respected in his field, wrote passionately about this "disgusting, ugly and unscientific" synthesis, an affront to one of our most treasured masterpieces. Writing to the director of UNESCO, the German ambassador to Egypt, and to Mohamed El-Orabi, the Egyptian ambassador in Berlin, I listed our objections to the treatment of Nefertiti, pointing out not only the aesthetic offence but the very real peril. Attaching a limestone bust to a bronze body may have caused it irreparable damage and risked its destruction, had it somehow fallen from the body. To subject a rare masterpiece to such degradation combined with the possibility of harm, is inexcusable.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Stanford University archeologists excavating a San Francisco military landmark hope to better understand the living conditions and history of women in Spanish colonial and Mexican California. "Women are not represented in historic records very much and archaeology is one of the few ways that we can learn what their daily lives were like," said Dr. Barbara Voss who is leading the team that began excavating on Wednesday. The team is excavating an area of the Presidio called El Polin Springs, where known archaeological deposits may date to the Spanish colonial and Mexican period between 1776 and 1848.

At least one in ten of the objects in Iraq's national museum are missing, its director has said. Dr Nawalaal Mutawalli told a press conference at the British Museum in London that some 13,000 objects had gone missing from the Baghdad institution's storage room in the days following the fall of Saddam Hussein. Mobs of looters attacked the building, leaving a trail of devastation after US-led forces seized the Iraqi capital in April. Dr Mutawalli said museum staff had only searched through part of the storage room, so the picture could still be much worse.

All 340 ancient stone sculptures and celebrity inscriptions on a mountain resort in Hangzhou City of Zhejiang Province were photographed on Tuesday as valuable references for further protection efforts. All 340 ancient stone sculptures and celebrity inscriptions on a mountain resort in Hangzhou City of Zhejiang Province were photographed on Tuesday as valuable references for further protection efforts.

AVEBURY, England -- Terence Meaden arrived late and breathless, his plans muddled and his glasses askew, having forgotten the time of our appointment and having neglected to bring my cellphone number. He had come to show us the prehistoric stones and barrows of Avebury, but, with his deep knowledge and absent-minded charm, he seemed the model of modern British eccentricity. He cast a worried eye toward the weather. The sun was shining --- a fairly rare event in winter --- but clouds were looming. Certain rock formations were best viewed in sunlight, he said. In anticipation of afternoon gloom, we would have to forgo his usual chronological tour and work with the elements. But where to start, where to start?

Spread out on tables in Fort Wynyard in Cape Town lie bits of broken porcelain, miniature vases, a tot measure, cannonballs and a firebomb - artefacts recovered from two Dutch East India Company ships that sank in Table Bay during a storm in 1697. The Oosterland and the Waddingxveen were returning to Holland with a cargo from the East when they were hit by one of the infamous Cape winter storms while anchored in Table Bay. Eye-witness accounts recorded in documents in archives in Holland and Cape Town say that on May 24 the wind was strong and "the sea angry and increased in force so that waves broke over the masts".

Passers by at any local construction site may spot anthropologist Jack Rossen poking around, making an unsupervised -- and often unauthorized -- archaeological survey. Rossen, 47, has worked at sites around the world, from 11 states to Peru, Argentina, Chile and Jamaica, since beginning his career. But the assistant professor of anthropology at Ithaca College was surprised to discover that there were no archaeologists doing work locally, despite the area's rich history. Interesting archaeology doesn't have to mean traveling far away, Rossen said. During the Sullivan campaign of 1779, soldiers burned Cayuga villages across the state, many in Tompkins County. Since 2000, Rossen has run a summer archaeological field school for area college students, concentrating on local Cayuga sites. He is also the treasurer and a historian for Strengthening Haudenosaunee-American Relations through Education (SHARE) www.SHARE.clarityconnect.com, a nonprofit organization that educates the community about Native American culture and history.

EL PALMILLO, Mexico - (KRT) - The team of archeologists waited anxiously as Linda Nicholas lowered her digital camera into the dark space behind the ancient stone door. From their diggings, the crew from Chicago's Field Museum knew they had just uncovered a 1,500-year-old tomb from Oaxaca Valley's Zapotec civilization. But their suspense at what they would see inside the untouched vault was tempered by concerns that they would find more than jade and pots. One of their fears was that looters would come to their remote hilltop dig.

Much has been made of the evidence from the so-called Adam and Eve genes, which support the notion that all modern humans alive today have descended from ancestors living in Africa within the past 200,000 years. A recent find of skeletons in Ethiopia, dated to 160,000 years ago, confirms the final transitions between pre-modern and anatomically modern humans in Africa. But the fine details and dates of early human explorers do not just come from advances in the study of genes and bones. Traces of a great natural disaster may allow us to pinpoint just when humans first left Africa. The scene of the disaster is Lake Toba which today is a popular tourist spot in Sumatra. Toba is the largest lake in South-east Asia - 100km long and 31km wide - and, at 450m deep, it is one of the deepest in the world. Tourists may be unaware that Toba is also the world's largest active volcanic crater. About 74,000 years ago the volcanic eruption of Toba caused the biggest explosion of the past two million years. This "mega-bang", dwarfing the historic eruption of Krakatoa, caused a six-year "nuclear winter" and released ash in a huge plume that spread to the north-west, covering the Indian sub-continent in a blanket of ash between one and three metres deep. The Toba eruption is a valuable date mark, since the ash covered such a wide area, and can still be chemically identified today.

LONDON (Reuters) - Microwave radar from satellites could be used to find buried archaeological treasures, underground buildings and even mass graves. Scientists at Ben Gurion University in Israel have shown that such radar can see below the surface of dry ground and locate objects under tons of sand. "Buried objects can be detected from airborne systems," Dan Blumberg, a researcher at the university, told New Scientist magazine on Wednesday. He and his colleague Julian Daniels provided proof of the theory by burying squares of aluminum at varying depths in the Negev desert and using radar sensing from an aircraft to detect them.

LONDON -- In the next few months, explorers hope to lower a tethered robot to the ocean floor near Spain to explore a 17th-century shipwreck believed to contain history's richest sunken treasure. The HMS Sussex was leading a British fleet into the Mediterranean Sea for a war against France and its leader, Louis XIV, the Sun King, when it sank in a severe storm in 1694 with 500 men and 80 guns aboard. Historians believe the 157-foot warship was carrying nine tons of gold coins aimed at buying the loyalty of the Duke of Savoy, a potential ally in southeastern France. If the wreckage that was found half a mile underwater off Gibraltar is the Sussex, the robot could place a very valuable booty into baskets for lifting to the surface.

CAIRO, July 9 (AFP) - A team of Canadian archeologists has painstakingly pieced together a broken fourth century glass vase depicting warriors from the Roman period in Egypt, an antiquities official said here Wednesday. The Royal Ontario Museum experts started reassembling the parts three years ago after finding them in the Dakhla Oasis, about 700 kilometers (420 miles) southwest of Cairo, said Sabri Abdel Aziz, who is responsible for the region. The vase, which is 72 centimetres (29 inches) high, depicts three warriors as well as two civilians wearing togas, he told AFP. "This kind of vase was used all over the Roman world, from Gaul to Afghanistan." The Canadian team recently found another glass vase which was in the unusual shape of a baby, and dated from the same period, Sabri added. Egypt was incorporated into the Roman Empire from around 30 BC to 337 AD, serving as an imperial granary.

Europe's first mission to the Moon has been given the green light for launch on 28 AThe move was rubber stamped on Wednesday at a flight review at the European Space Agency's research centre in the Netherlands (Estec). Smart 1 is currently in storage there but will be flown to the Kourou spaceport in French Guiana in the next few days. "This is the go-ahead to pack the whole thing in a crate and send it to the launch site," says Manuel Grande, the leading British scientist on the project. "All we have to do now is go to Kourou and light the blue touch paper."

CAIRO (Reuters) - Ancient Egyptians loved their pets so much they even wanted to take them into the after life. Mummified cats, dogs, monkeys and even crocodiles -- lovingly preserved in the same way as the pharaohs -- will be on display later this month in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass told Reuters Television that ancient Egyptians were not only pet lovers who wanted to preserve animals for life after death, but also held some animal forms as sacred.

Archaeologists have discovered the bones of a human who lived 25,000 years ago, in a cave on the outskirts of Beijing. The bones were found in the village of Zhoukoudian near the site where the Peking Man fossils were discovered. Excavations began in the cave in 2001 after forestry workers discovered fossilised animals there. The gender and exact age of the remains are still not known, although the news reports said they are believed to be those of an adult male, and that researchers estimated them to be 25,000 years old.

The eastern slopes of the Andean Cordillera, in the Equador province of Zamora-Chinchipe, bordering Peru, form part of the Amazon piedmont. This region of undulating topography, situated between 500 and 2000 m altitude, had not up to now been the focus of any systematic archaeological research. This area was occupied in historical times (from the end of the first millenium) by groups belonging to the Jivaro linguistic family, the Bracamoros, who were probably the inhabitants the Spanish conquistadors encountered in the XVIth century.

The rich world is running dangerously short of time to redeem its promises on helping the poor, the United Nations says. Despite three years of concerted effort, some countries have recently begun to get poorer. On present trends, some African countries will not vanquish poverty until 2165, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) believes. It says poor countries must introduce reforms, while rich ones improve trade and aid.

Solar flares erupting on the Sun's surface are the most massive explosions in our Solar System, which makes them hot beyond all reason. But a young NASA observatory trained on the Earth's parent star found the flares even hotter than researchers originally thought, and should bolster their understanding of the stellar phenomenon. It could one day even help scientists predict when solar flares occur. "This is a years-long effort, but the potential is there," said solar physicist Gordon Emslie, who led the recent solar flare study. "It's our ability to interpret the data that will tell."

Many fish, reptiles, birds, and insects are able to see ultraviolet light. Some even use pigments that reflect it to attract mates and communicate. But most mammals have lost the ability to see ultraviolet light and lack the cellular machinery necessary to detect it. Now, a new study suggests that urine plays such an important role on the rodent communication grapevine that it may explain why some species have retained ultraviolet (or UV) sensitive cells and visual pigments and other mammals haven't.

Astronomers have discovered a planetary system more similar to our own Solar System than any known previously. The bright star HD70642, visible with binoculars toward the constellation of Puppis, was already known to be a star like our Sun. Now a planet with twice Jupiter's mass has been discovered in a nearly circular orbit at approximately half the orbital distance of Jupiter. Such an orbit allows the possibility of habitable Earth-type planets orbiting further in, a possibility not likely with all previously discovered planetary systems with massive planets occupying disruptive closer elliptical orbits.

It was said the English countryside used to sparkle - its field margins would swirl with the colour from arable "weeds". Times have certainly changed. The "unwelcome" plants that took their chances among the farmers' crops are now in full retreat. Mechanisation, herbicides and modern techniques of field management mean it is the crop that now chokes the weed and not the other way around. Traditional arable species have shown perhaps the greatest decline of all British plants in the last 25 years.

Spanish slave ship, wrecked on a West Indies reef in 1841, soon may provide the British colony of Turks and Caicos with a rare, direct link to its African roots. Although many residents of the nearby Caribbean trace their ancestry to Africa, few populations are so closely tied to a single accident of history. Archivists and archaeologists say that many of the 20,000 residents of the Turks and Caicos are direct descendants of 193 African men and women who were shipwrecked there more than a century and a half ago.

JERUSALEM -- The discovery was a stroke of luck: the light of the setting sun hit an ancient tomb at just the right angle and revealed hints of a worn inscription, unnoticed for centuries, commemorating the father of John the Baptist. "This is the tomb of Zachariah, martyr, very pious priest, father of John," the inscription of 47 Greek letters reads. The inscription probably does not mean that the father of the biblical figure is actually buried in the 60-foot-high funerary monument at the foot of the Mount of Olives, say the text's discoverers. But it does give new insight into the local lore surrounding the early figures of the Christian Church.

YOZGAT - The multinational archeological excavations started in Kerkenes, Cadirhoyuk and Buyuknefes regions in central province of Yozgat. Officials at the Yozgat Governor's Office told the A.A correspondent on Saturday that during excavations, which were started under the chairmanship of Dr. Geoffrey Summers in 1993 in Kerkenes Mountain near Sahmuratli village in Sorgun town of Yozgat, traces of Pteria, the biggest city of the Iron Age, were found. The ivory plate, which was unearthed during the excavations in Kerkenes, was handed over to the Anatolian Civilizations Museum in Ankara. Dr. Summers will continue archaeological excavations in the region with his 30-member team this year.

The Beagle 2 lander has passed its first routine "health check" on the journey to Mars. Engineers made contact with the module at the weekend to test various systems as it hurtled towards the Red Planet onboard Mars Express. It appears to be in good shape for the 400-million-kilometre journey. "Everything we checked out has worked as predicted," Beagle team leader Professor Colin Pillinger told BBC News Online. "We had full contact from Earth through Mars Express to Beagle. "All the pieces are in place and they allow the contact we need to run the mission."

Work by South Korea to develop a stretch of coastal mudflats has been condemned by conservation groups. They say the area is a vital staging post for migrating birds, which will have nowhere else to go. The site is said to qualify for listing as an internationally important wetland. The South Korean Government says it needs the land for farming and supplying fresh water. The dispute over the mudflats, at Saemangeum on the Yellow Sea, is described in Dyke Hard, a film in the Earth Report series made by Television Trust for the Environment (TVE) and shown on BBC World.

Scotland's beekeepers have said they are fighting a losing battle against a bug which has devastated the UK's honeybee population. There have been 31 reported cases of the Varroa destructor mite so far this year, nearly double the number at the same time last year. The verroa mite lives on the body of the bee, sucks its blood and gradually drains it of strength. In the last five years, the mites have spread from England through southern Scotland and have now reached as far north as the Highlands.

A huge dust storm is raging over a third of Mars, obscuring many surface features. Experts hope it will subside by 27 August when Mars will be at its brightest and closer to Earth than it has ever been in recorded history. The dust storm began in the Hellas basin, one of the lowest regions of Mars, and a frequent breeding ground for such events. Since then, it has expanded with winds carrying dust into the thin atmosphere for several thousand kilometres.

Recently we discovered new tombs located near the pyramid builders' tombs, in an area southeast of the Sphinx and south of the Heit El Ghorab (Wall of the Crow) in Giza. We found about 15 new tombs in the area of the workmen who moved the stones. The tombs were constructed of mud brick, some shaped like a pyramid, and the skeletons were located underneath the mud brick superstructure.

Researchers going underground for signs of the elusive dark matter thought to far outweigh normal matter in the Universe might do better to take a closer look at the skies, a team of physicists is suggesting. Jonathan Feng and colleagues at the University of California at Irvine propose that around 90% of all the matter in the Universe is hiding in the form of particles called super-WIMPs that would evade all conventional dark-matter searches.

It's no wonder that farmers with fields in the plains surrounding Stonehenge, in southern England, face late-summer mornings with dread. On any given day at the height of the growing season, as many as a dozen farmers are likely to find a field marred by a circle of flattened grain. Plagued by some enigmatic nocturnal pest, the farmers must contend not only with damage to their crops but also with the intrusions of excitable journalists, gullible tourists, befuddled scientists, and indefatigable investigators of the phenomenon.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Technology and weather finally cooperated at the same time late Monday, allowing NASA at long last to send the Mars Rover Opportunity on its way to the Red Planet. Riding atop the first-ever Delta 2 Heavy rocket, Opportunity was sent safely speeding on a path that would have it escape Earth's gravity and travel seven months to reach the Martian surface. Opportunity is joining its twin, the Mars Rover Spirit launched June 10, on an $800 million mission to learn more about when water might have flowed on Mars. Both probes are targeted to land in January. Only three of humanity's nine landing attempts at the Red Planet have succeeded, said Ed Weiler, NASA's space science chief in Washington, D.C.

Roosevelt Lake is buried deep in a rocky, dusty basin of the Tonto National Forest about 100 kilometers northeast of Phoenix. It's not easy to get to, even in a four-wheel-drive truck. But for scientists eager to study past cultures, it's well worth the effort. "And here we have some early decorated pottery, nice red on buff. Early Hohokam stuff," says archaeologist Scott Wood as he fiddles with a fragment of pottery from a 1,300-year-old Indian village. It's dusky red with black, jagged lines painted across it. Mr. Wood, who wears a cowboy hat, has a salt and pepper ponytail and chomps a cigar, is fascinated with this site, and the remnants of the Hohokam Indians.

Stonehenge has dominated the Wiltshire landscape for more than 4,000 years and is one of the world's most important heritage sites, but its purpose has remained a mystery. Some researchers have claimed the stone circles were used as a giant computer; others that Stonehenge was an observatory for studying stars and predicting the seasons; and a few have even argued that its rings acted as a docking pad for alien spaceships. Now a University of British Columbia researcher who has investigated the great prehistoric monument for several years has announced he has uncovered its true meaning: it is a giant fertility symbol, constructed in the shape of the female sexual organ.

FORT MACLEOD - They say the history of the West was written from the saddle of a horse and the heart of an explorer, but long before Europeans explored and settled the West, the First Nations people who lived on the land kept its history. For thousands of years, these people passed down history through countless generations as they sat around campfires in teepees -- a history that is found today in artifacts and legends preserved in native museums and historical sites.

DAMASCUS (AP) -- Syrian archeologists have unearthed a 6th-century mosaic at the remains of a church in the north of the country, a state-run newspaper said Saturday. Ahmed Ghareib, head of al-Maarra Museum, told Tishrin newspaper that the 80-square-metre mosaic was discovered at the village of Tel Tarei in Idlib province, 330 kilometres north of Damascus. Archeological digs turned up the church remains and the mosaic, which depicts hunting scenes and geometrical designs. The mosaic will be transferred to al-Maarra Museum in the town of Maraat al-Noaman in Idlib province.

The Supreme Council for antiquities under Dr. Zahi Hawas gave the go ahead to an Italian archaeological team to excavate and to do restoration works at Mustafa Kamel area tomb which discovered in 1983. The tomb goes back to the Ptolemaic era. The location is expected to be declared a tourist site.

Engineers have found a way to rescue valuable scientific data from a Sun-monitoring spacecraft, despite a serious mechanical problem with its main antenna. By rerouting the transmissions through a secondary antenna normally used to download system information, they hope to lose no more than two percent of data. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) uses a dozen different instruments to image the Sun's surface and coronal activity and to monitor particle flux in the solar wind. But as well as being of interest to solar scientists, SOHO monitors solar flares emitted by the Sun that cause magnetic storms when they reach the Earth's magnetosphere.

Add one more problem to the beleaguered Japanese Mars probe, Nozomi. There are worries in some science quarters that the troubled spacecraft could possibly contaminate Mars. Nozomi will find itself at the red planet in December, years behind its originally intended arrival time. The spacecraft has been beset by multiple woes. A thruster problem prevented the probe to attain the correct speed during an early swingby of Earth. That forced ground teams to script an emergency flight plan for Nozomi.

The discovery of Ice Age art could help speed up development plans at the Cresswell Crags site. An old sewerage works at the site near Worksop, Nottinghamshire has already been relocated at the cost of £4 million, allowing greater space for events and festivals. Plans are also in place to relocate a road running through Cresswell Gorge by next year.

In a visit to Luxor city, the camera of Al-Ahram recorded the huge efforts of the Antiquity Authority in repairing our monuments and saving it from the factors of time. The hand of repairing was extended to highlight the beauty of one of the most beautiful royal Egyptian tombs in the western bank in Luxor. The repairing work turned king Hur Moheb tomb in the Kings Valley to a dazzling masterpiece for visitors. It included accurate repairing in all the elements of the tomb and the operations of fixing its colors as done in the wooden grounds. The system of the new lighting highlights the beauty of ornaments and the magical colors.

The US space agency (Nasa) will make another attempt on Monday to get its second Mars Exploration Rover up and away on its six-month journey to the Red Planet. The Opportunity vehicle has been held on the launch pad because of a mixture of bad weather and concerns about insulation panelling on its rocket, a Boeing-built Delta II.

The legend of Captain Scott's expeditions in the Antarctic has been somewhat eclipsed in recent years, with a raft of books, TV dramas and films on rival explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Now Scott's supporters are on the offensive, arguing that he has been unfairly lampooned in the past for his supposed mistakes and poor judgement. The Captain Scott Society has erected a statue to the explorer in Cardiff Bay. It stands near the spot where Scott's ship, the Terra Nova, set sail for Antarctica in June 1910 and carries a plaque with the names of all those on the expedition.

German researchers are generating ten times more electricity than before from bacteria. Uwe Schröder and colleagues at Ernst Moritz Arndt University in Greifswald have created a prototype microbial fuel cell that captures the energy produced by Escherichia coli as it feeds on sugar1. Making up to 150 milliamps, the bacterial battery can drive a medical ventilator, for example. Many microorganisms convert sugars and other carbohydrates to alcohols, acids and carbon dioxide. When no air is present, this fermentation process can also produce hydrogen - the fuel in most fuel cells, such as those being developed for 'green' electric vehicles. The energy released by the reaction of the gas with oxygen generates electricity.

ISRAEL is lighting up its camels in an attempt to stop fatal collisions between the traditional ship of the desert and motorised ones, an official said today. Israeli police are sticking phosphorescent strips on the bodies of the camels to serve as warning lights for desert drivers, because of growing numbers of crashes in which both people and camels have died. The Bedouin population of Israel's southern Negev desert uses both forms of transportation - camels and pickup trucks - and the mix has often been fatal when the two collide in the night.