Newsdesk Archive

. A Brazilian-American archeological team believed terra preta, which may cover 10 percent of Amazonia, was the product of intense habitation by Amerindian populations who flourished in the area for two millennia, but they recently unearthed evidence that societies lived and farmed in the area up to 11,000 years ago.

Earth may be 20 million years older than previously thought, claims new research.

Cosmic airbags could protect the Earth from rogue asteroids and comets, according to a US mathematician. Hermann Burchard says a giant inflatable space pillow would knock the objects while keeping them intact.

A Swiss scientist says he's discovered human sperm have a memory by putting them through a maze test.

"Inca City" is the informal name given by Mariner 9 scientists in 1972 to a set of intersecting, rectilinear ridges that are located among the layered materials of the south polar region of Mars. Their origin has never been understood...

In a number of early Asian and South Asian writings, we find references to flying machines of various types. We are told of certain groups or individuals who fabricate devices, so as to travel great distances through the air. These accounts of "aerial vehicles", as some texts call them, are interesting for historian of technology as representative of one way in which certain early writers exhibited their technological dreams and ambitions.

Robert Bauval will be a guest on the Art Bell "Coast to Coast" show on Sept6/7 giving the latest news about the Gantenbrink affair.

"They are in good condition, maybe the size of a thumb or toe, and with a pretty golden brown color...."

Professor Svenson and Dr. Theo Valdivik....were even more amazed to discover preserved coffee grounds in the timbers [of a Viking long ship at the bottom of Loch Ness]. All previous data indicates that the Vikings did not have access to coffee and this find may cause a whole chapter of their history to be re-written as it now appears that they may have sailed as far afield as South America...

Science, not myth, likely produced Scotland's Loch Ness monster, according to an Italian researcher who puts reports of the notorious sea creature down to earthquakes.

A MYSTERIOUS passage in the Great Pyramid at Giza will be explored by a robot next month in an attempt to unravel one of the final secrets of the last remaining wonder of the Ancient World.

ROMAN soldiers went to war on egg and pizza according to archaeological analysis of Roman army toilets in Scotland.

A North Yorkshire teenager is convinced she has been hit by a meteorite which could be billions of years old.

A team of leading independent historians and researchers announced today that Radio Carbon dating evidence, and the discovery of ancient British style artefacts and inscriptions in the American Midwest, provided, "the strongest indications yet" that British explorers, under the Prince Madoc ap Meurig, arrived in the country during the 6th Century and set up colonies there.

Six earth-and-rock mounds rise out of the windswept desert of the Supe Valley near the coast of Peru. Dunelike and immense, they appear to be nature's handiwork, forlorn outposts in an arid region squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the folds of the Andean Cordillera. But looks deceive. These are human-made pyramids, and compelling new evidence indicates they are the remains of a city that flourished nearly 5,000 years ago. If true, it would be the oldest urban center in the Americas and among the most ancient in all the world.

A prehistoric prince with gold ear-rings has been found near Stonehenge a few yards away from the richest early Bronze Age burial in Britain.

ALIEN artisans from space did not need to build Egypt's pyramids - according to husband-and-wife research team Joyce Tyldesley and Steven Snape - the Egyptian workers did a great job on their own.

Discovered by 15 University of the South Pacific geography students at Moturiki Island, the two-metre skeleton is believed to be of Solomon Islands origin.

Carbon-dating tests that determined the Shroud of Turin isn't old enough to be the burial cloth of Jesus are flawed because some of the tests were done on patches of the original material, two researchers say.

A Russian company plans to send a robot probe to a Martian moon in 2007, where it will take a small sample of soil and bring it back to Earth for analysis, the news agency Itar-Tass said Tuesday.

Of all the questionable characters on the alternative scene today, perhaps none has been accused of such indiscretions more often than Richard C. Hoagland.

Mr Gimenez said the final possibility, and most probable, is that the anaconda accomplished a rare parthenogenesis - a cellular division that forms an embryo without fertilization...."Parthenogenesis is frequent among young scorpions and lizards who cannot find a male."

Russian satellites have discovered a river flowing 700 feet under the Sahara.

In a squalid suburb of northeast Cairo, a red granite obelisk towering above ramshackle homes is the last visible vestige of a nearly 7,000-year-old city where ancient Egyptians believed life began. Archaeologists say they soon expect to unearth other artefacts and unlock the secrets of the sun-cult city of On buried beneath today's suburbs of Ain Shams, which means "eye of the sun" in Arabic, and the adjacent area of Matariya.

September 1st, our first Author of the Month discussion begins with Elaine Morgan's "The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis." Remember to pick up a copy at you local library, bookstore, or here in our online Bookshop.

Possibly nowhere in the world is a good soak in a hot spring more appreciated than it is in Japan. But at a resort in Yamanouchi, in the heart of central Japan's hot springs country, the bathers are monkeys.

Geologists claim they've found evidence of the oldest known meteorite impact on Earth - 3.47billion years ago.

And deep inside the Great Pyramid - the largest pyramid ever built - Dr Hawass will explore a narrow shaft. Why is it there? And why is there a blocking stone lodged some 200 feet up preventing anyone from discovering what is on the other side?

Anthropologist Andras Nerlich, who examined the foot, confirmed that the artificial toe was "very well used and very comfortable". However Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), is of another opinion. "The wooden toe would not have been used during the deceased's lifetime," he says. "It would be extremely difficult for a person to walk with an artificial toe. If an attempt were made, the individual would undoubtedly fall over." Hawass suggests the toe was added when the woman was being mummified. "This was in order to send her body intact to the afterlife without any deformity," he says.

Archeologists have uncovered a horde of relics in Northern Ninh Binh province last week. The historically fruitful haul includes axes, pestles jewellery and ceramic pieces that are thought to be a staggering 3,5000 years old.

"The Nazis believed the Holy Grail could be in the form of written tablets containing universal truths of all-consuming knowledge and immortality."

France's defence ministry has turned down a historian's request to exhume Napoleon's remains for DNA testing, a move that might have put paid to a growing suspicion that the body buried in Paris is not in fact Boney's.

Earlier this year, his Leo-ness had been attached to star in a big-budget movie about Alexander the Great to be directed by his Gangs of New York pal Martin Scorsese. Now, however, the boat boy is contemplating jumping ship and joining a rival project on the Macedonian conqueror to be helmed by Baz Luhrmann.

Troy is an adaptation of "The Iliad," a story set against the Trojan War and the rivalry between Achilles and Hector. It has been written by The 25th Hour scribe Daniel Benioff.

The Vinland Map--a weathered, faded bit of parchment just 16 inches wide--might be a unique record of heroic Viking voyages to North America two centuries before Columbus set sail. Then again, it might be a total fraud. A pair of recent studies have reignited a long-simmering debate over the map's authenticity, with one side claiming the parchment is clearly medieval and the other declaring that the ink is most definitely modern.

This book is a milestone on the road to a new behavioral understanding of religion, basing itself on what has come to be known as cognitive anthropology, and pointedly ignoring much work done over the past one hundred years in the behavioral study of religion and in the psychological anthropology of religion. The author wishes to challenge accepted wisdom and displays a contrarian spirit. No mention is made in this book of Freud, Durkheim, Wallace, La Barre, or Malinowski. We are in Year I of the Cognitive Anthropology Revolution and the Old Regime has to be erased from memory. What are the benefits, and costs, of this radical approach?

McEwan opened proceedings by talking about the explosion of interest in evolutionary psychology. 'I have stood back amazed,' he admitted, 'especially in the last ten or fifteen years, as things that were once simply the preserve of poets, philosophers and fiction writers, have been drawn into the great maws of experimental science. Things like reputation, gratitude, cheating, and on a grander level, human beauty and beyond that to mind, consciousness and human nature. These were once not respectable subjects for scientific enquiry, but in twenty years this has all changed.'

JAPANESE scientists hope to use parts of a mammoth preserved in the Siberian permafrost to impregnate an Indian elephant with its sperm and clone the extinct animal for display at an Ice Age wildlife park.

A new US study has found close relatives can recognise each other's smell, but they don't like it....aversion to the smell of...relatives may be part of an anti-incest mechanism.

Animal behaviour experts say young captive dolphins have learned to copy whistles used by trainers to communicate with each other.

A bird thought to be extinct has been spotted near the summit of the highest volcano in Colombia.

Scientists believe two compounds in coffee, cola and chocolate could help tackle cancer and heart disease.

Scientists in Scotland say they have found proof of the so-called "beer goggles" effect, following a study involving 80 students.

Biologists in North Carolina say their study of ostrich eggs proves birds didn't descend from dinosaurs.

Ethiopian Christians...believe the ark still exists in their country. The biblical ark signified God's presence among his people. It was a wooden box containing the two tablets of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai.

RARELY HAS a book so convincingly celebrated the thrill of intellectual discovery, and The Rosetta Stone: The Story of the Decoding of Hieroglyphs has additional elements that lend it the suspense and mystery of a spy thriller.

Chimpanzees lack key parts of a language gene that is critical for human speech, say researchers. The finding may begin to explain why only humans use spoken language.

Tall men are likely to have more children than their shorter contemporaries, according to a study showing that the reverse is true for women.

"People in Newark, Ohio, have no idea or don't appreciate the significance of this site," said Richard Shiels, a professor of history at the Ohio State University-Newark and a member of the Friends of the Mounds. The local citizens group's goals include increasing public access to the earthworks and ending the lease that allows the country club to operate a golf course on the site.

When turned upside down, the thin-necked vessels with round bases resemble opium poppies pods. If there was any doubt about what was inside, the round bases have white markings, designs that symbolized knife cuts made on poppies bulbs so the white opium base can ooze and be harvested, Zias said.

Ludwin began to search obscure volumes of tribal folklore, where she found that, for centuries, Indians from British Columbia's Vancouver Island to the coast of Northern California had been telling strikingly similar tales of mudslides, of plains that suddenly became oceans and other stories that strongly suggest tribes bore witness to tsunamis like the one in 1700.

Prof. Manindra Agarwal and two of his students, Nitin Saxena and Neeraj Kayal...have discovered a polynomial time deterministic algorithm to test if an input number is prime or not. Lots of people over...centuries have been looking for a polynomial time test for primality, and this result is a major breakthrough....

Recent reports analyzing mitochondrial DNA sequences from Neandertal bones have claimed that Neandertals and modern humans are different species. The phylogenetic analyses carried out in these articles did not take into account the high substitution rate variation among sites observed in the human mitochondrial D-loop region and also lack an estimation of the parameters of the nucleotide substitution model. The separate phylogenetic position of Neandertals is not supported when these factors are considered. Our analysis shows that Neandertal-Human and Human-Human pairwise distance distributions overlap more than what previous studies suggested. We also show that the most ancient Neandertal HVI region is the most divergent when compared with modern human sequences. However, the opposite would be expected if the sequence had not been modified since the death of the specimen. Such incongruence is discussed in the light of diagenetic modifications in ancient Neandertal DNA sequences. (Thanks to Mikey Brass for Highlighting this article elsewhere)

This is a reminder that our first *Author of the Month* discussion will be starting in just two weeks time!

Minister of Culture Farouq Hosni told reporters yesterday at a press conference that a number of plaques of sandstone that date back to the epoch of Ramsis III were unearthed in Mut temple to Karnak temple next in Luxor.

An American-financed expedition to find the tomb of legendary conqueror Genghis Khan has stopped work after being accused by a prominent Mongolian politician of desecrating traditional rulers' graves.

A scientist claims the 'UFOs' behind a series of attacks on Indian villagers are just balls of lightning.Professor Ravindra Arora says the coloured balls ranging from tennis to football size are caused by dry weather.

An Australian museum says it's found the remains of giant pre-historic geese. The Northern Territory Museum believes the fossilised remains discovered in central Australia are a significant scientific find.

Scientists have been warned they'll have to get their timing right if they want to contact intelligent aliens. Dr Robin Corbet says the best chance of picking up a message is when the Earth is closest to being directly between the Sun and the transmitting alien star.

Doctors in California think high autism rates in the Silicon Valley area could be down to the 'computer geek' genes of its workers. The BBC says up to one in 150 children in the area have some sort of autistic disorder - much higher than the rest of the US.

"I think this is not a door and nothing is behind it..." So said Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Director of the Giza Pyramids Excavation....In September 2002 Dr Hawass, as well as Fox television, National Geographic, and a robot designed by NASA will attempt to further investigate this amazing non-door. Because, as we all know, non-doors are particularly interesting things.

Supreme Council of Antiquates Secretary General Zahi Hawas said that a golden ring carrying the name of tomb's owner-the priest of Osiris was found in addition to many rock-hewn tombs and 220 statues and remains of human bones.

By creating an enormous number of fake Moabite artifacts, [Moses Wilhelm Shapira] almost single-handedly created Moabite culture and civilization. As Uri Katz has observed, "What differentiates Shapira from other antiquities forgers is his impressive success in generating, purely out of his own creative genius, an entire culture."

With the fall of communism, Western archaeologists for the first time have had an extended opportunity to join their Asian colleagues in trying to illuminate the moment when Mongolia's sedentary herdsmen became history's most fabled horsemen.

Scientists claim brand names tug at the emotions more than ordinary words...Brand strategist Robert Jones, from company Wolff Olins in London said: "This is very intriguing indeed....brands are a special class of word - they are like a poem all in one word in their ability to evoke and express ideas."

Climate change may have begun killing North American dinosaurs even before an asteroid finished the job.

Indian villagers claim they are being attacked by flying spheres which emit red and blue lights. At least seven people have died in the last week of unexplained injuries in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

You might call it, "Jurassic Park: Live!" It's not a stage version of the popular movie, though -- this really is "Jurassic Park" -- live! They plan to call it the "Pleistocene Park". Located in Siberia, the proposed site is in an area far from humans, which has good grazing for the ancient animals that will roam the grounds.

Bone studies carried out by National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) experts found evidence of dental practices, including endodontics and treatment for cavities, gums and bad breath, in pre-Columbian remains discovered in the central state of Morelos.

Graham Hancock has added a new article to the Features section of GrahamHancock.com, in which he responds to a number of critical comments that have been made at another Web site, regarding his work.

Archeologists have uncovered exciting new evidence of a pre-historic settlement at a castle in Northumberland. They were carrying out a survey for English Heritage using satellite technology at Norham Castle when the discovery was made.

Modern Europeans can trace a great deal of their ancestry to Middle or Near Eastern farmers who moved into the continent 10,000 years ago. The assessment comes from a new computer and genetics study which has sought to understand how the new agrarian technologies were introduced to the region.

China had an express postal service as long ago as 221 BC according to archaeologists studying recently discovered Imperial documents....According Xinhua news agency, some of the slips in the archive contain the characters "Kuai Xing" (fast delivery), leading experts to believe they were sent through an express Qin Dynasty postal service.

Each month at GrahamHancock.com, we will be featuring a discussion of the works of an author, specially selected by Graham Hancock, and recommended to subscribers of this message board. Facilitated by Christopher F. Ash, each discussion will be one full month in length and will focus on one particular book, with a greater lexicon recommended for supplementary reading.

Read an special guest essay by famed author, Elaine Morgan, exclusive to readers of GrahamHancock.com.

The discovery, made by a team of Australian scientists, undermines Einstein's key formula which maintains that the speed of light must remain constant.

Archaeologists have found a prehistoric dugout canoe or log boat buried in the seabed off the coast of Co Meath. The boat, which is cut from a single tree trunk, could date from about 3000 BC. While a small number of similar boats have been found in lakes, this is the first to be found in the sea.

Farmers from the Middle East literally carried civilisation with them into Europe, 10,000 years ago, according to new genetic analysis. It reveals that modern inhabitants of Paris, Athens and Berlin share, on average, 50 per cent of their genes with people from Baghdad, Tehran, Ankara and Damascus.

In a posting on GrahamHancock.com, Robert Bauval has revealed that the "door" discovered at the end of one of the Queen's Chamber shafts is to be opened during a special live, worldwide television broadcast to 41 countries.

The secretary-general of the Archaeological Higher Council, Zahi Hawas, said the archaeologists were digging south of the Sphinx in Giza when they found what was, in the third millennium B.C., a fully stocked and functioning bakery.

A professor claims a skeleton discovered near where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found may be the remains of John the Baptist...Israeli archaeologists say his theory is far-fetched and that the burial site unearthed is probably that of an 18th century Bedouin man.

Villagers in Afghanistan have uncovered a lost Buddhist city thought to date back to the 2nd Century....the discovery may radically rewrite the history books.

An artist's reconstruction shows human skulls on a strange row of spiked wooden poles, which were discovered leading up to the gate, with the fragments of cranial, cheek and jaw bones below them.

A team of British archaeologists has unearthed evidence suggesting that Europeans were playing chess as early as the sixth century....Until now chess historians had agreed that the game only became popular with the European elite during the 12th Century, 700 years after it was invented in China, India or ancient Persia.

British politicians are scrapping over the site of King Arthur's fabled Camelot, making conflicting claims that the legendary monarch lived in their constituency.

An adaptation of the acclaimed historical novel by Steven Pressfield....Gates of Fire recounts the famous last stand made in 480 B.C. by Leonidas, King of Sparta, and his 300 warriors against the overwhelming forces of Persian ruler Xerxes at Thermopylae. George Clooney's Maysville Pictures will produce. Oscar nominee Michael Mann...will direct.....Bruce Willis desperately wants to star....

Alexander has been Chris McQuarrie's dream project for several years now. "I wanted to be a part of a film that was similar to the films I grew up on that were larger than life with grand heroic characters at the center," McQuarrie told Variety this week. "What I find most compelling about Alexander the Great is the notion of a man who had conquered nine-tenths of the known world with the help of his childhood friend before the age of 25."

The remains of an enormous warrior who fought more than 2,000 years ago have been found in Kazakhstan

Scientists are convinced that dogs can count and researchers at the University of California, Davis, say they try to convey different messages through the pitch and pace of their barks.

Scientists have found an unusual crater similar to those in the outer reaches of the solar system - 80 miles offshore from Hull.

Astronomers in California say a newly discovered asteroid, more than a mile wide, will miss the Earth in 2019.

For the first time in the controversial saga of the famous Vinland Map, scientists say they have shown with certainty that the supposed relic is actually a 20th-century forgery. The findings are reported in the July 31 print issue of Analytical Chemistry, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Chemical Society, the world's largest scientific society.

An international team of explorers claims to have found the legendary Inca city of gold that the Spanish knew as "El Dorado," deep in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon.

There's a ceremonial walkway, several houses and a well -- but, puzzlingly, the Iron Age fort in northeast England has yielded no clues about whether anyone ever lived there.

40 more photographs by Santha Faiia of the underwater ruins offshore of Mahabalipuram now posted to the Underworld page.

Archaeologists working in Kazakhstan are on the trail of the earliest evidence of horse domestication. Evidence suggests the feral animal was once a ferocious creature hunted for its meat across Eurasia.

The story of how wild horses were tamed by ancient people has been pieced together by gene hunters. DNA evidence shows modern horses are descended from not one but several wild populations.

British experts are using laser technology to recreate Egyptian tombs and monuments for a new tourist site.The Desert Valley project aims to replicate ancient sites threatened by weather changes and earthquakes

A Puyallup Biblical researcher believes he has discovered the exact location of Noah's Ark on Turkey's Mount Ararat. Edward Crawford, an archaeological field technician with a background in biblical languages, is leading a local research team that will travel to the mountain as soon as the Turkish government grants the necessary permits.

Two priceless gold and silver head-dresses - dating back 4,500 years - have been found in archives at the British Museum. The 'forgotten' treasures have been discovered by scientists X-raying skulls excavated from the ancient Great Death Pit at Ur in southern Iraq in the 1920s.