Posted on 07/16/2004 11:27:10 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
(Excerpt) Read more at freerepublic.com ...
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· Saturday, February 13, 2010 · 62 topics · 2449834 to 2445539 · 740 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 291st issue. I'm in a bit of a rush. It's about 10 AM here, and my plan is to whip it out (the Digest I mean), read and post nothing else, and amscray. Instead of putting in line breaks on some too-long titles, I chopped off some parentheticals, or in one case just edited them back into English (ahem). |
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bookmarked
For those in or near Chicago:
http://www.southtownstar.com/neighborhoodstar/homewood-flossmoor/2045065,021410HFdontmiss.article
‘Phrygian Footsteps’ lecture Thursday
February 14, 2010
Scott Branting will give a free slide lecture titled “Walking in Phrygian Footsteps: Using Green Technology to Excavate a City from the Time of King Midas” during a meeting of the South Suburban Archaeological Society at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Marie Irwin Community Center, 18120 S. Highland Ave., Homewood [Illinois].
Branting, director of the Center for Ancient Middle Eastern Landscapes and a research assistant professor at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, will discuss the ongoing archaeological work at a Phrygian city at Kerkenes Dag in Turkey that dates to about 610 B.C.
“(It) illustrates some of the many ways that green technologies can be applied within archaeology,” Branting said. “Simulations developed here, based on physiological models of people walking, provide an intriguing tool that can be used both to understand ancient cities and to assist modern city planners in designing cities that require less automobile traffic.”
For more information, call Helen or Ira Hardman at (708) 748-7806.
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #292 Saturday, February 20, 2010 |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| [Israeli] PM's List of Heritage Sites Does Not Include Cave of Machpelah |
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· 02/18/2010 1:06:27 PM PST · · Posted by jjotto · · 3 replies · 186+ views · · Arutz Sheva · · February 18, 2010 · · Gil Ronen · |
(IsraelNN.com) ...In recent days Netanyahu has been proudly touting a new initiative for preserving heritage sites throughout Israel. However, many who read the list of sites promulgated by the Prime Minister's Office were disappointed to find no mention of the two important sites where the nation's forefathers and fore-mothers are buried, and which are specifically mentioned in the Bible. "No one knows better than you that our continued presence on the land depends more than anything on the deep consciousness that this is the land of our forefathers," Dayan wrote Netanyahu. "What better than these two sites for passing on... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Netanyahu lobbies Russians for ancient Hebrew texts |
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· 02/17/2010 3:11:23 PM PST · · Posted by Tailgunner Joe · · 12 replies · 337+ views · · haaretz.com · · February 17, 2010 · |
Israel's desire to retrieve the historic Guenzberg collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts from Russia was discussed during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting on Monday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. .... Netanyahu personally raised the subject of the collection, which is thought to be the world's second-largest anthology of ancient Hebrew literature, after the Bodleian Library in Oxford. .... The Guenzbergs, a Russian-Jewish noble family, acquired their collection over three generations beginning in the 1840s. .... Following the death of Baron David Guenzberg in 1910, Zionist activists, among them Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, sought to retrieve the collection and arrange for its relocation... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Arabic inscription found under Jewish Quarter home |
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· 02/18/2010 5:12:08 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 26 replies · 748+ views · · Jerusalem Dispatch · · February 18, 2010 · |
A fragment of a marble plaque bearing parts of an Arabic inscription from the beginning of the tenth century CE was discovered in archaeological excavations Israel Antiquities Authority carried out prior to renovation work slated to take place in a private home in the Jewish Quarter. Only three engraved lines of square Arabic script characteristic of the first centuries of the Islamic period survived. Professor Moshe Sharon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem deciphered the writing based on two similar inscriptions that were previously discovered in the country. According to Professor Sharon, "The inscription that was found now, which dates... |
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| Ancient Arabic inscription found in Jerusalem |
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· 02/19/2010 7:53:45 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · 341+ views · · MSNBC · · Wednesday, February 17, 2010 · · Shira Rubin · |
A home renovation in Jerusalem's Old City has yielded a rare Arabic inscription offering insight into the city's history under Muslim rule, Israeli archaeologists said Wednesday. The fragment of a 1,100-year-old plaque is thought to have been made by an army veteran to express his thanks for a land grant from the Caliph al-Muqtadir, whom the inscription calls "Emir of the Faithful." Dating from a time when Jerusalem was ruled from Baghdad by the Abbasid empire, the plaque shows how rulers rewarded their troops and ensured their loyalty, archaeologists said. The Abbasids conquered Jerusalem after numerous wars with the Fatimid... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Strolling on the avenue [avenue of Sphinxes] |
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· 02/15/2010 11:47:54 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · 225+ views · · Al-Ahram Weekly · · February 11-17, 2010 · · Nevine El-Aref · |
...The 2,700-metre-long avenue of sphinxes was built during the reign of Pharaoh Nectanebo I of the [30]th-Dynasty. It replaced one built formerly in the 18th Dynasty, as Queen Hatshepsut (1502-1482 BC) recorded on the walls of her red chapel in Karnak Temple. According to this, she built six chapels dedicated to the god Amun-Re on the route of the avenue during her reign... The excavation team unearthed a large number of fragmented sphinxes that are now undergoing restoration in an effort led by SCA consultant Mahmoud Mabrouk. Once restored, they will be placed on display along the avenue... Archaeologists have... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| DNA studies show a frail King Tut succumbed to malaria and a broken leg |
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· 02/16/2010 7:56:30 AM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 28 replies · 584+ views · · Cox News · · 2-16-10 · · Paul Schemm, AP · |
Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun suffered from a cleft palate and club foot, likely forcing him to walk with a cane, and died from complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria, according to the most extensive study ever of his mummy. The findings were from two years of DNA testing and CT scans on 16 mummies, including those of Tutankhamun and his family, the team that carried out the study said in an article to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. |
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| Frail Boy-King Tut Died From Malaria, Broken Leg |
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· 02/16/2010 9:59:44 AM PST · · Posted by Biggirl · · 19 replies · 565+ views · · Yahoo! · · February 15, 2010 · · Paul Schemm · |
CAIRO -- Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun suffered from a cleft palate and club foot, likely forcing him to walk with a cane, and died from complications from a broken leg exacerbated by malaria, according to the most extensive study ever of his more than 3,300-year-old mummy. |
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| Egypt reveals Tutankhamun's lineage, cause of death |
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· 02/17/2010 5:59:51 PM PST · · Posted by Pan_Yan · · 20 replies · 573+ views · · Xinhuanet · · 2010-02-17 22:50:55 · |
CAIRO, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- A DNA study shows Egypt's famed King Tutankhamun who suffered from a club foot died of malaria and that his father was the "heretic" king Akhenaten, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said on Wednesday. Speaking at a press conference, Hawass said two years of DNA testing and CT scans on Tutankhamun's 3,300-year-old mummy and mummies either known or believed to be members of his immdiate family are helping reveal many of the myths surrounding the boy king's lineage and cause of death. Tutankhamun's father was the "heretic" king, Akhenaten, whose body is now almost certainly... |
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| Prehistoric Europe | |
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| The Egtved Girl |
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· 02/16/2010 5:21:19 PM PST · · Posted by Little Bill · · 46 replies · 1,286+ views · · Gallica Co UK · · 2002 · · Friedman · |
The Egtved Girl In 1921 a burial mound at Egtved was excavated. In it was found a completely preserved coffin, and inside it lay a 16-18 year old girl about 160cm (5'4") tall, slim, with long, loose blonde hair and carefully trimmed nails. For burial she had been laid in the coffin, fully dressed, on top of a cow-skin. Her upper body was clad in a loose bodice with elbow length sleeves and around her hips she wore a knee length skirt of string. On her braided woollen belt were a large, spiral-decorated bronze disk with a spike and a... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Valentines in Ancient Rome Were All About Pain |
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· 02/13/2010 7:16:09 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 26 replies · 620+ views · · Live Science · · Feb 13, 2010 · · Clara Moskowitz · |
While valentine notes today tend to stress caring and warmth, love letters from ancient Rome often highlighted the wrenching, painful side of romance, historians say. Valentine's Day itself didn't yet exist in ancient Rome, but men still wrote love poems about their sweethearts - often married women, and sometimes men. But where modern declarations of love often involve flattery and gratitude, the ancient Romans wrote more about pain. Unlike what you see in contemporary stores where we have valentines that are all clouds and dreamy and romantic, the Romans had a very different kind of take on love," said Barbara... |
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| Deal or No Deal? | |
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| Why Did Rome Fall -- And Why Does It Matter Now? |
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· 02/12/2010 5:58:58 AM PST · · Posted by Tolik · · 113 replies · 2,207+ views · · pajamasmedia.com · · February 11, 2010 · · Victor Davis Hanson · |
Count the ways: A German scholar twenty years ago listed, I recall, some 210 reasons for the collapse of the Western empire. Readers, you have heard many of them, plausible and otherwise -- corruption, civil strife, Germanic barbarians, Christianity, lead in the pipes of the elite, etc.Any such discussion is also predicated on two other twists: the Eastern Empire at Constantinople went on for nearly another 1,000 years until the 1453 sack by the Ottomans. And for the last twenty years, revisionists have disputed Gibbon's notion of a dramatic "fall" in the West, and argued instead that it was a "transition" as the... |
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| The Phoenicians | |
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| Pitt-led study debunks millennia-old claims of systematic infant sacrifice in ancient Carthage |
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· 02/17/2010 10:10:18 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 35 replies · 527+ views · · University of Pittsburgh · · Feb 17, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Researchers examined 348 burial urns to learn that about a fifth of the children were prenatal at death, indicating that young Carthaginian children were cremated and interred in ceremonial urns regardless of cause of death -- A study led by University of Pittsburgh researchers could finally lay to rest the millennia-old conjecture that the ancient empire of Carthage regularly sacrificed its youngest citizens. An examination of the remains of Carthaginian children revealed that most infants perished prenatally or very shortly after birth and were unlikely to have lived long enough to be sacrificed, according to a Feb. 17 report in PLoS ONE.... |
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| Navigation | |
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| On Crete, New Evidence of Very Ancient Mariners |
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· 02/17/2010 7:15:26 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 25 replies · 403+ views · · The New York Times · · 15 Feb 2010 · · John Noble Wilford · |
Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected. That is the startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say, are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for rethinking the maritime capabilities of prehuman cultures. |
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| Greece | |
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| Bronze Age shipwreck found off Devon coast [UK] |
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· 02/15/2010 11:05:23 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 32 replies · 547+ views · · Telegraph · · Saturday, February 13, 2010 · · Jasper Copping · |
...Archaeologists have described the vessel, which is thought to date back to around 900BC, as being a "bulk carrier" of its age. The copper and tin would have been used for making bronze -- the primary product of the period which was used in the manufacture of not only weapons, but also tools, jewellery, ornaments and other items. Archaeologists believe the copper -- and possibly the tin -- was being imported into Britain and originated in a number of different countries throughout Europe, rather than from a single source, demonstrating the existence of a complex network of trade routes across... |
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| British Isles | |
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| New Battle of Bosworth Field site revealed [along with site of Richard III's murder] |
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· 02/19/2010 7:43:21 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 36 replies · 539+ views · · BBC · · Friday, February 19, 2010 · · unattributed · |
The true site of one of the most decisive battles in English history has been revealed. Bosworth, fought in 1485, which saw the death of Richard III, was believed to have taken place on Ambion Hill, near Sutton Cheney in Leicestershire. But a study of original documents and archaeological survey of the area has now pinpointed a site in fields more than a mile to the south west. A new trail will lead from the current visitor centre to the new location... The traditional site has a flag at the crest of the hill, a stone to mark the spot... |
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| Forensics is Ten | |
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| UK scientists say find cheap, fast gene test method |
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· 02/16/2010 5:41:48 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · 170+ views · · Reuters · · Feb 16, 2010 · · Kate Kelland · |
LONDON (Reuters) -- British scientists say they have developed a way of pinpointing variations in a person's genetic code using a chemical test on saliva, meaning quick, cheap DNA tests for risks of certain diseases may be around the corner. Researchers at Edinburgh University said their technique, based on chemical analysis, can deliver reliable results without the need for expensive enzymes used in conventional DNA testing. Juan Diaz-Mochon of the university's School of Chemistry, who led the research, said the chemical method was able to detect genes linked to cystic fibrosis in laboratory experiments using synthetic DNA. With funding from... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Dorset explorer Col John Blashford-Snell identifies link between Pacific and Atlantic |
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· 02/17/2010 7:31:23 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 8 replies · 435+ views · · Daily Echo · · 14 Feb 2010 · · James Morton · |
A NORTH Dorset explorer has discovered evidence of an ancient water route connecting the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Col John Blashford-Snell made the breakthrough on his recent trip to the Central American country of Nicaragua. It is believed the route, which encompasses rivers, a lake and flood plains, would be more ancient than the Panama Canal. The research focused on the strip of west-coast land separating Lake Nicaragua from the Pacific. A local fisherman told how he managed to cross the strip on a temporary lake created during wet season floods. "It seems likely that even if early cartographers did... |
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| The General | |
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| George Washington's Tear-Jerker |
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· 02/15/2010 4:21:18 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 52 replies · 786+ views · · The New York Times · · February 14, 2010 · · John R. Miller · |
CIVILIAN control of the military is a cherished principle in American government. It was President Obama who decided to increase our involvement in Afghanistan, and it is Congress that will decide whether to appropriate the money to carry out his decision. It is the president and Congress, not the military, that will decide whether our laws should be changed to allow gays and lesbians to serve in our armed forces. The military advises, but the civilian leadership decides. Yet if not for the actions of George Washington, whose birthday we celebrate, sort of, this month, America might have moved in... |
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| Mighty Washington: The greatest President |
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· 02/15/2010 6:03:52 AM PST · · Posted by Colonel Kangaroo · · 20 replies · 314+ views · · Union-Leader · · 2-15-2010 · · Union-Leader Editorial · |
Today is not Presidents' Day. The holiday's official title is George Washington's Birthday. It is a day for celebrating the Father of our Country, whose greatness is often forgotten. Few Americans know that George Washington never received more than elementary-level schooling. But he was a whiz at math, and his sharp mind and appetite for adventure led him to surveying, then to the Army. Incredibly, in his first military adventure, the totally untrained soldier led an attack on a French force near the Ohio River, killing a French ambassador. Thus began the French and Indian War. Washington was captured and... |
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| Where Have you Gone George Washington? |
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· 02/15/2010 2:34:35 PM PST · · Posted by Mobile Vulgus · · 7 replies · 214+ views · · Publius Forum · · 02/15/10 · · Warner Todd Huston · |
I don't celebrate "President's Day." I celebrate the presidents individually, not the whole gaggle of them at once. But I most certainly don't celebrate George Washington, the father of our country, as just another president. These days, George Washington has been relegated to that "truth telling guy" to be seen on the one dollar bill and on TV commercials at the end of February or that guy lumped in with Lincoln on "President's Day." And that is a shame, indeed, for, without George Washington, our presidency and nation might have had a far different attitude. But, what made Washington such... |
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| Founding Father |
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· 02/17/2010 9:30:22 AM PST · · Posted by molybdenum · · 9 replies · 141+ views · · The American Spectator · · 2-15-10 · · John Berlau · |
February is an important month in the history of American commerce. In this month is the birthday of one of the country's earliest business innovators and large-scale entrepreneurs. During a time period of America's existence as an English colony and then a young nation -- when, to put it mildly, communication and transportation faced challenges -- this businessman's enterprise processed 1.5 million fish per year sent throughout the 13 American colonies and the British West Indies. The mill he... |
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| George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior |
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· 02/18/2010 4:16:48 PM PST · · Posted by La Enchiladita · · 29 replies · 397+ views · · Foundations Magazine · · Circa 1748 · · George Washington · |
By age sixteen, Washington had copied out by hand, 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation. They are based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595. Presumably they were copied out as part of an exercise in penmanship assigned by young Washington's schoolmaster. ...These rules proclaim our respect for others and in turn give us the gift of self-respect and heightened self-esteem. |
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| The Framers | |
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| How Christian Were the Founders? |
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· 02/12/2010 10:01:44 AM PST · · Posted by Steelfish · · 78 replies · 629+ views · · NYTimes · · February 12, 2010 · · Russell Short · |
Last month, a week before the Senate seat of the liberal icon Edward M. Kennedy fell into Republican hands, his legacy suffered another blow that was perhaps just as damaging, if less noticed. It happened during what has become an annual spectacle in the culture wars. Over two days, more than a hundred people -- Christians, Jews, housewives, naval officers, professors; people outfitted in everything from business suits to military fatigues to turbans to baseball caps -- streamed through the halls of the William B. Travis Building in Austin,... |
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| James Madison describes our current "Jobs" problem |
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· 02/14/2010 7:09:04 PM PST · · Posted by 4Speed · · 11 replies · 250+ views · · Federalist Papers #62 · · February 27, 1788 · · James Madison · |
As for Creating Jobs, even James Madison knew about our Present Unemployment Problems, and in his Federalist #62 describes our current "Jobs" problem... The want of confidence in the public councils damps every useful undertaking, the success and profit of which may depend on a continuance of existing arrangements. What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed? What farmer or manufacturer will lay himself out for the encouragement given to any particular cultivation or establishment, when he... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| A journey through hallowed ground |
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· 02/13/2010 1:41:13 PM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 21 replies · 346+ views · · Alexandria Times · · Friday, February 12 2010 · · Jeanne Theismann · |
From Thomas Jefferson's beloved Monticello to the sacred battlefield where Abraham Lincoln delivered his immortal Gettysburg address, one road meanders through a region where 17 presidents carved out their lives, shaped their legacies and made their homes. Spanning three states -- Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania -- Route 15 is a 180-mile long stretch of highway that bisects a 75-mile-wide region that is said to hold more historic sites than any other in America, including the largest collection of Civil War sites in the nation. Recently designated as The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Scenic Byway by U.S. Secretary of Transportation... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Black Soldiers From Clarksville Went 'Over There' in WWI |
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· 02/14/2010 6:20:59 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 5 replies · 220+ views · · The Leaf Chronicle · · February 14, 2010 · · Alane S. Megna · |
Black soldiers from Clarksville went 'over there' in WWI |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Iwo Jima Vets Observe Battle's 65th Anniversary |
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· 02/19/2010 4:54:14 PM PST · · Posted by Dubya · · 20 replies · 583+ views · · American Forces Press Service · · Lisa Daniel · |
TRIANGLE, Va., Feb. 19, 2010 -- Dozens of veterans of the Battle of Iwo Jima and their families gathered at the National Museum of the Marine Corps here today to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the iconic World War II battle. The battle for Iwo Jima -- the first U.S. attack on Japanese soil -- is memorialized worldwide by the famous Joe Rosenthal photo of five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the U.S. flag on Mount Suribachi. Three of the six later were killed in battle. "Iwo Jima was not the bloodiest or the longest battle" of World War... |
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| Commanders in Chief | |
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| U.S. presidents: In [armed] service to this nation |
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· 02/19/2010 6:58:22 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 34 replies · 413+ views · · Enid News and Eagle (OK) · · February 18, 2010 · · David Christy · |
-- In November 2008, the United States elected just its 44th president. It wasn't until I started researching this column I found the full extent of military influence on our nation's highest office. Fully 31 of the 44 men who have taken the oath of office to the highest post in the land have served in some capacity in this nation's military. Of the 31 who have donned either an Army, Navy, Guard or militia uniform, 12 achieved the rank of general during their term in service. Of course, none will ever be higher ranked than our first president -- ... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| The Velvet Philosophical Revolution |
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· 02/15/2010 4:18:12 PM PST · · Posted by Lorianne · · 2 replies · 238+ views · · City Journal · · Winter 2010 · · André Glucksmann · |
As the philosopher Josep Ramoneda has observed, the whole world -- Communists, anti-Communists, and those in between -- took it as given that the Soviet Union and its satellites could not "return" to capitalism. So when, during the Velvet Revolution, demonstrators posed exactly this question -- How can we go from socialism to capitalism? -- there was no ready answer. As Western intellectuals watched Berlin in November 1989, they reconsidered their long belief that the world was fated to be Communist -- but retained their belief in fate. Providence had at last spoken, chance was abolished, the terrible parenthesis of the twentieth century had closed. Forgotten, erased, transcended, surpassed were... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Sussex University: Where You Earn A New Kind of Bachelor's Degree |
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· 02/14/2010 6:10:00 AM PST · · Posted by mattstat · · 13 replies · 351+ views · · Briggs' 'blog · · William M. Briggs · |
In a cost-cutting move, the University of Sussex will largely scrap its History programme. European history will start with 1900. "The university said the cuts were part of a plan to save £3 million, and were in response to a lack of student demand. It added that courses in "film, music, media and global studies' would continue to grow." The 2011 University of Sussex Course Catalog Sussex University: Where you get your degree™ The Sociology of Facebook Who should you "friend' and who should you ignore? What is the best way to "un-friend' a person without hurting her or his... |
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| Hope and Change | |
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| 21st Century Skills--a quick look at the newest education fad |
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· 02/19/2010 2:31:47 PM PST · · Posted by BruceDeitrickPrice · · 13 replies · 356+ views · · California Chronicle · · Jan. 29, 2010 · · Bruce Deitrick Price · |
Here's a short blog entry I can't improve. It's a tease for a longer article (see link) but almost complete in itself: "21st Century Bull Okay, here's the last century of American education summed up in a sentence: the Education Establishment pretends to care about education, knowledge, basics, all that stuff, even as they undercut them at every opportunity. That's it. A century of disingenuousness. Every single pedagogy and method was a con. New Math and Whole Word, most spectacularly so. The others less blatantly so but just as subversive....It's as if we're dealing with drug addicts here. They say... |
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| How U.S. History is taught could change in N.C. |
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· 02/10/2010 6:38:48 AM PST · · Posted by NCDragon · · 26 replies · 594+ views · · WRALNews.com · · February 10, 2010 · · Bruce Mildwurf · |
Raleigh, N.C. -- A new proposal for the history curriculum in North Carolina public schools is causing uproar. Among the biggest concerns is covering U.S. history only from 1877 to the present in the 11th grade. "There's nothing on the Confederacy, nothing on Robert E. Lee, nothing on Abraham Lincoln, nothing on any battle, nothing on reconstruction, nothing on the causes of the war, nothing on slavery. Nothing on slavery anywhere in the curriculum," said Dr. Holly Brewer, associate professor of Early American History at North Carolina State University. Brewer opposes the curriculum change and says students would not learn... |
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| North Carolina Schools May Cut Chunk Out of U.S. History Lessons |
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· 02/16/2010 5:00:56 AM PST · · Posted by Halfmanhalfamazing · · 26 replies · 553+ views · · Fox news · · February 3rd · · Molly Henneberg · |
He may be the president who governed during the Civil War, freeing the slaves, but under a new curriculum proposal for North Carolina high schools, U.S. history would begin years after President Lincoln, with the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877. State education leaders say this may help students learn about more recent history in greater depth. "We are certainly not trying to go away from American history," Rebecca Garland, the chief academic officer for North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, told Fox News. "What we are trying to do is figure out a way to teach it where... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| The End of Intelligent Design? |
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· 02/09/2010 3:15:53 PM PST · · Posted by cornelis · · 94 replies · 1,205+ views · · First Things · · February 9, 2010 · · Stephen Barr · |
It is time to take stock: What has the intelligent design movement achieved? As science, nothing. The goal of science is to increase our understanding of the natural world, and there is not a single phenomenon that we understand better today or are likely to understand better in the future through the efforts of ID theorists. If we are to look for ID achievements, then, it must be in the realm of natural theology. And there, I think, the movement must be judged not only a failure, but a debacle. Very few religious skeptics have been made more open to... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Mass Extinctions: 'Giant' Fossils Are Revolutionizing Current Thinking |
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· 02/15/2010 11:29:02 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 26 replies · 717+ views · · ScienceDaily · · February 11, 2010 · · Adapted from CNRS · |
Large-sized gastropods (up to 7 cm) dating from only 1 million years after the greatest mass extinction of all time, the Permian-Triassic extinction, have been discovered by an international team including a French researcher from the Laboratoire Biogéosciences (CNRS/Université de Bourgogne), working with German, American and Swiss colleagues. These specimens call into question the existence of a "Lilliput effect," the reduction in the size of organisms inhabiting postcrisis biota, normally spanning several million years. The team's results... have drastically changed paleontologists' current thinking regarding evolutionary dynamics and the way the biosphere functions in the aftermath of a mass extinction event...... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Scientists in aurochs genome sequence first (wild cattle) |
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· 02/18/2010 3:33:47 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · 276+ views · · BBC · · Feb 17, 2010 · · Steven McKenzie · |
Scientists have analysed the DNA of ancient giant European wild cattle that died out almost 400 years ago.They have determined the first mitochondrial genome sequence from aurochs (Bos primigenius) from bone found in a cave in England. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from a mother to her offspring. One of the researchers involved, Dr Ceiridwen Edwards, has previously investigated the remains of a polar bear found in the Scottish Highlands. The work was carried out at the University College Dublin's Animal Genomics Laboratory and Conway Institute using new technology that allows billions of base pairs of DNA to be... |
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| Africa | |
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| Steak Dinners Go Back 2.5 Million Years |
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· 02/15/2010 11:21:59 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 35 replies · 490+ views · · Discovery News · · Tuesday, February 9, 2010 · · Larry O'Hanlon · |
The discovery of a new "missing link" species of bull dating to a million years ago in Eritrea pushes back the beef steak dinner to the very dawn of humans and cattle. Although there is no evidence that early humans were actually herding early cattle 2.5 million years ago, the early humans and early cattle certainly shared the same landscape and beef was definitely on the menu all along, say researchers... "This means that the humans have been eating Bos since the beginnings of the genus Homo," said Martinez, referring to the genus to which humans belong. The million-year-old skull... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us? |
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· 01/05/2010 12:54:26 AM PST · · Posted by Bobalu · · 59 replies · 1,917+ views · · Discover · · December 28, 2009 · · Gary Lynch and Richard Granger · |
Two neuroscientists say that a now-extinct race of humans had big eyes, child-like faces, and an average intelligence of around 150, making them geniuses among Homo sapiens. The history of evolutionary studies has been dogged by the intuitively attractive, almost irresistible idea that the whole great process leads to greater complexity, to animals that are more advanced than their predecessors. The pre-Darwin theories of evolution were built around this idea; in fact, Darwin's (and Wallace's) great and radical contribution was to throw out the notion of "progress" and replace it with selection from among a set of random variations. But... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Tigers evolved with snow leopards, gene study reveals |
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· 02/14/2010 11:27:58 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 12 replies · 259+ views · · news · · 12 February 2010 · · Matt Walker · |
The tiger may be more ancient and distinct than we thought. Tigers are less closely related to lions, leopards and jaguars than these other big cats are to each other, according to a new comprehensive study. The genetic analysis also reveals the tiger began evolving 3.2 million years ago, and its closest living relative is the equally endangered snow leopard. The discovery comes as the BBC launches a collection of intimate videos of wild tigers and the threats they face. Despite the popularity and endangered status of tigers, much remains to be discovered about them, including how they evolved. It... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Amazon Monster Is Only a Myth. Or Is It? (Bigfoot sightings in Brazil) |
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· 07/08/2007 1:52:43 PM PDT · · Posted by Clintonfatigued · · 26 replies · 1,013+ views · · AOL News · · July 8, 2007 · · Larry Brother · |
Perhaps it is nothing more than a legend, as skeptics say. Or maybe it is real, as those who claim to have seen it avow. But the mere mention of the mapinguary, the giant slothlike monster of the Amazon, is enough to send shivers down the spines of almost all who dwell in the world's largest rain forest. In some areas, the creature is said to have two eyes, while in other accounts it has only one, like the Cyclops of Greek mythology. It's said to be more than seven feet tall and covered in thick, matted fur. The folklore... |
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| end of digest #292 20100220 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #293 Saturday, February 27, 2010 |
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| The Facts Are IN the Ground | |
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| Hebrew University archaeologist discovers Jerusalem city wall from tenth century B.C.E. |
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· 02/22/2010 4:34:40 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 72 replies · 851+ views · · Hebrew Univ of Jerusalem · · 2-22-10 · |
Jerusalem, February 22, 2010 - A section of an ancient city wall of Jerusalem from the tenth century B.C.E. - possibly built by King Solomon -- has been revealed in archaeological excavations directed by Dr. Eilat Mazar and conducted under the auspices of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The section of the city wall revealed, 70 meters long and six meters high, is located in the area known as the Ophel, between the City of David and the southern wall of the Temple Mount. Uncovered in the city wall complex are: an inner gatehouse for access into the royal quarter... |
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| Archaeologist Sees Proof For Bible In Ancient Wall |
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· 02/22/2010 5:58:22 PM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 52 replies · 1,063+ views · · AP via NPR · · February 22, 2010 · · Anon · |
An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era. If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C. That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time. While some Holy... |
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| Dig Supports Biblical Account of King Solomon's Construction |
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· 02/22/2010 7:32:11 PM PST · · Posted by bogusname · · 8 replies · 305+ views · · Israel National News · · February 22, 2010 · · Maayana Miskin · |
(IsraelNN.com) Even as Muslim spokesmen try to deny Jewish claims to the Holy Land, archaeological discoveries have recently been coming in fast and furious proving the veracity of the Biblical account of history. Hebrew University archaeologists have revealed an ancient path in Jerusalem believed to date back to the time of King Solomon, along with structures including a gateway and the foundation of a building. Dr. Eilat Mazar, the leader of the archaeological dig, said the findings match finds from the time of the First Temple. Arutz Sheva TV's Yoni Kempinski visited the archaeological dig where the ancient wall was... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Patriarchs' Cave in heritage plan-PM gives in to pressure |
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· 02/21/2010 10:16:52 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 6 replies · 160+ views · · Jerusalem Post · · 2-21-10 · |
PM gives in to pressure from Shas ministers, right-wing groups, lobbyists. The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem will be included on the list of heritage sites marked for state renovation and preservation, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared at Sunday's cabinet meeting. The announcement came following pressure from Shas ministers as well as from Infrastructures Minister Uzi Landau and right-wing groups. Earlier on Sunday, the Knesset Lobby for Greater Israel planned to visit the cave to protest the site's previous exclusion from the heritage plan, which marks 100 historic, religious and cultural sites for preservation... |
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| Palestinian objection to Israeli "Heritage" ties to biblical sites illustrates absence of pluralism |
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· 02/22/2010 3:50:26 PM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 6 replies · 188+ views · · IMRA · · 2-22-10 · |
Document: Palestinian NGO's objection to Israeli "Heritage" ties to biblical sites illustrates absence of pluralism Dr. Aaron Lerner - IMRA: Here is where we are: 1. There are numerous places in the "Holy Land" beyond the "Green Line" that are intimately linked to Jewish history and thus to Jewish identity and heritage. Recognizing these historical links in now way rules out a priori that some of these places may not be under Israeli control in a final status arrangement. 2. There are numerous places in "Historical Palestine" within the "Green Line" that are intimately linked to the history of Arab... |
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| US slams Israel over designating heritage sites |
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· 02/25/2010 9:28:21 AM PST · · Posted by Never A Dull Moment · · 93 replies · 1,903+ views · · ynet · · Feb 25, 2010 · · Associated Press · |
The Obama administration criticized Israel for designating two shrines on Palestinian territory as Israeli national heritage sites. The criticism came as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday she hopes long-stalled peace talks between Israelis and the Palestinians will resume. Clinton told a congressional committee that groundwork is being laid to restart the talks with the help of US envoy George Mitchell. Toner said US displeasure with the designations of the Cave of the Patriarchs in the flash point town of Hebron and the traditional tomb of the biblical matriarch Rachel in Bethlehem had been conveyed to senior Israeli... |
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| What The Press Isn't Telling You About the "Unrest" in Hebron |
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· 02/24/2010 7:38:32 AM PST · · Posted by Shellybenoit · · 11 replies · 264+ views · · The Lid/Various · · 2/24/10 · · The Lid · |
For the past three days the Palestinians have been protesting in the city of Hebron (Chevron in Hebrew). The reason, Israel added two West Bank sites to their "Heritage Sites" list, The Tomb of Rachel and the Cave of the Patriarchs. This designation means that resources would be invested in infrastructure and in making holy sites more accessible to more worshipers. Israel would continue to uphold its policy of freedom of worship for all faiths. Hamas and Fatah are using the move to rile up the public saying that it is an Israeli takeover of their land. The Mainstream Media... |
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| The Exact Replica of the 3rd Temple is Being Built (YouTube) |
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· 02/15/2010 3:13:56 PM PST · · Posted by GiovannaNicoletta · · 269 replies · 2,378+ views · · YouTube Video · |
Jews in the town of Mitzpe Yericho are taking practical steps to prepare for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem, by preparing descendents of Cohanim (priests) and Levites for service. At the Mitzpe Yericho school, Temple priest hopefuls learn exactly how to conduct the daily Temple service and offer the required sacrifices. "Today is really a historical event for the Jewish people, organizer Levi Chazan said as another part of the school was completed. It is the beginning of the work for the Third Temple. The school will include an exact replica of the Temple. The latest addition to... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Ancient Bible Manuscript Fragments Reunited [Song of the Sea] |
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· 02/26/2010 7:58:57 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · 180+ views · · Discovery News · · Friday, February 26, 2010 · · Karoun Demirjian, Associated Press · |
Two parts of an ancient biblical manuscript separated across centuries and continents were reunited for the first time in a joint display Friday, thanks to an accidental discovery that is helping illuminate a dark period in the history of the Hebrew Bible. |
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| Greece | |
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| First Minoan Shipwreck: An unprecedented find off the coast of Crete |
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· 02/23/2010 5:38:02 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · 513+ views · · Archaeology Magazine · · January/February 2010 · · Eti Bonn-Muller · |
Depictions of ships abound on Minoan seals and frescoes. They are detailed enough to show that the vessels were impressive: generally, they had 15 oars on each side and square sails, and were probably about 50 feet long. But little more was known about actual Minoan seafaring--until Greek archaeologist Elpida Hadjidaki became the first to discover a Minoan shipwreck... For nearly a month, she and a team of three sponge and coral divers aboard a 20-foot-long wooden fishing boat trolled up and down the island's shores. Together with George Athanasakis of Athens Polytechnic University, they used side-scanning sonar and detected... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Prince's Palace Found in Volcanic Crater [where Romulus and Remus were educated] |
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· 02/26/2010 7:50:53 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · 237+ views · · Discovery News · · Friday, February 26, 2010 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
The residence of Sextus Tarquinius, the prince who sparked the revolt that led to the foundation of the Roman Republic, may have been found. The palace was found at the site where, according to legend, Romulus and Remus were educated... The building dates to the sixth century B.C and boasts the highest intact walls from the period ever found in Italy, standing at around 6.56 feet high... Fabbri and colleagues from Rome's Archaeological Superintendency believe that the residence was furiously demolished, probably during the Roman revolt in 510 B.C. that ultimately led to the foundation of the Roman Republic. The... |
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| Golden Bough from Roman mythology 'found in Italy' |
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· 02/23/2010 6:45:35 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · 517+ views · · Telegraph · · February 18, 2010 · · Nick Squires · |
In Roman mythology, the bough was a tree branch with golden leaves that enabled the Trojan hero Aeneas to travel through the underworld safely. They discovered the remains while excavating religious sanctuary built in honour of the goddess Diana near an ancient volcanic lake in the Alban Hills, 20 miles south of Rome. They believe the enclosure protected a huge Cypress or oak tree which was sacred to the Latins, a powerful tribe which ruled the region before the rise of the Roman Empire. The tree was central to the myth of Aeneas, who was told by a spirit to... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Microbes Leave Gold on Corpses, May Complicate Forensics |
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· 02/25/2010 9:11:57 AM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 15 replies · 331+ views · · Yahoo News · · 2-25-10 · · Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience Contributor · |
Metals found in the hair of corpses have solved all kinds of mysteries. For instance, high levels of arsenic found in Napoleon's hair suggest the former emperor of France might have been poisoned to death, intentionally or unintentionally. However, scientists now find that bacteria can sprinkle gold dust onto the hair of corpses, which suggests microbes could deposit arsenic and other poisonous metals on bodies as well, potentially complicating criminal and archaeological investigations. |
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| Egypt | |
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| Ancient Egypt Rises Again as Water Recedes |
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· 02/23/2010 6:52:38 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · 391+ views · · FrontLines · · December 2009-January 2010 · · Analeed Marcus · |
Medinet Habu lies miles away from the more famous Luxor and Karnak Temples but, unlike these two World Heritage Sites on the Nile's East Bank where a USAID-funded dewatering project has slowed the rate of deterioration, the West Bank temple continues to decay due to groundwater intrusion. Building structures become porous and cracked by rising groundwater levels. The wall surfaces where hieroglyphics and drawings are etched have begun falling away. "The surface is sloughed off the stone, like skin," Johnson said. Though some buildings have stood since 2000 B.C., neighboring sugarcane irrigation has caused water levels to rise and bring... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Putative Skull of St. Bridget Probably Not Authentic |
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· 02/23/2010 7:02:12 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · 204+ views · · Archaeology Daily · · Monday, February 22, 2010 · · Science Daily · |
"One skull cannot be attributed to Bridget or Catherine as it dates back to the period 1470-1670. The other skull, thought to be from Saint Bridget, is dated to 1215-1270 and is thus not likely to be from the 14th Century when Bridget lived. It cannot, however, be completely excluded that the older skull is from Bridget if she had a diet dominated by fish, which can shift the dating results. But this is unlikely," says Göran Possnert. "The results from both methods support each other. Our DNA analyses show that we can exclude a mother and daughter relationship. This... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Woman who found coin ... in garden becomes first to be prosecuted for not reporting treasure [UK] |
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· 02/26/2010 3:55:33 PM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 97 replies · 1,856+ views · · Daily Mail · · 26th February 2010 · · Andy Dolan and Dalya Alberge · |
A woman who found a 700-year-old silver 'coin' whilst digging in her garden as a child has become the first in the country to be convicted of failing to hand in suspected treasure. Kate Harding, 23, was prosecuted under the Treasure Act after she ignored orders to report the coin-like artefact to a coroner. A court heard the silver piedfort marking Charles IV's ascension to the French throne in 1322 was discovered by Miss Harding 14 years ago as she worked in the garden with her mother at their home in Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire. Following her mother's death a short... |
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| Africa | |
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| China, Kenya to search for ancient Chinese wrecks |
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· 02/26/2010 9:33:12 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 10 replies · 214+ views · · Associated Press · · Feb 26, 2010 · · Unknown · |
China and Kenya plan to search for ancient Chinese ships wrecked almost 600 years ago off Africa's east coast. Between 1405 and 1433, Zheng He -- whose name is also spelled Cheng Ho -- led armadas with scores of junks and thousands of sailors on voyages to promote trade and recognition of the new dynasty, which had taken power in 1368. |
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| China | |
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| China Discovers Old Bricks Made 7,000 Years Ago |
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· 02/23/2010 5:42:17 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · 226+ views · · CRIEnglish / Xinhua · · February 20, 2010 · · Web Editor: Zhang · |
Bricks dating back 5,000 to 7,000 years have been unearthed in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, adding between 1,000 to 2,000 years onto Chinese brick-making history, archaeologists claimed Saturday. "The five calcined bricks were unearthed from a site of the Yangshao Culture Period dating 5,000 to 7,000 years ago. Previously, the oldest known bricks in the country were more than 4,000 years old," Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology researcher Yang Yachang said. The bricks, including three red ones and two gray ones, all uncompleted, Yang said. The site under excavation is located at Liaoyuan Village of Baqiao District, and Huaxu Town,... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| How a hobbit is rewriting the history of the human race |
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· 02/23/2010 5:47:15 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · 423+ views · · The Guardian (UK) · · Sunday, February 21, 2010 · · Robin McKie · |
The bones of a race of tiny primitive people, who used stone tools to hunt pony-sized elephants and battle huge Komodo dragons, were discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004... These remains came from a species that turned out to be only three feet tall and had the brain the size of an orange. Yet it used quite sophisticated stone tools. And that was a real puzzle. How on earth could such individuals have made complex implements and survived for aeons on this remote part of the Malay archipelago? Some simply dismissed the bones as the remains of... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Scientists turn migration theory on its head |
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· 02/26/2010 10:41:37 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 16 replies · 418+ views · · The Vancouver Sun · · 26 Feb 2010 · · Randy Boswell · |
U.S. anthropologists hypothesize that ancestors of aboriginal people in South and North America followed High Arctic route Two U.S. scientists have published a radical new theory about when, where and how humans migrated to the New World, arguing that the peopling of the Americas may have begun via Canada's High Arctic islands and the Northwest Passage -- much farther north and at least 10,000 years earlier than generally believed. The hypothesis -- described as "speculative" but "plausible" by the researchers themselves -- appears in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, which features a special series of new studies... |
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| PreColumbian Middle Ages | |
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| Copper men: Archaeologists uncover Stone Age copper workshop near Monk's Mound | |
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· 02/23/2010 6:07:26 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · 417+ views · · News-Democrat · · Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2010 · · George Pawlaczyk · |
But there is something unique about a particular excavated area beside a rather plain looking mound -- Mound 34 -- that lies about 200 yards east of the world famous and huge Monk's Mound at Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. The carefully sifted soil at this excavation has revealed evidence of the only known copper workshop from the Mississippian-era, a culture that peaked about 1250 A.D. throughout the middle and southern portions of America. The overall Illinois state site was the location of a large, prehistoric city of perhaps 20,000 that archaeologists call Cahokia... ...the bits and pieces of the... |
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| The Andes | |
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| Secrets of the Lost City of Z |
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· 02/23/2010 8:16:55 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 15 replies · 637+ views · · CBS · · 21 Feb 2010 · · Anthony Mason · |
Since the dawn of the modern age, the notion of a pre-historic world, hidden deep in the jungle and untouched by the passage of time, has captivated our imaginations. Before "Jurassic Park," before "King Kong," there was "The Lost World." Written in 1912 by Sherlock Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Lost World" was in turn largely inspired by the real-life adventures of one remarkable man: Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett. David Grann, a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine, says in his time Fawcett was a larger-than-life figure: "Oh, he really was. I mean, he was the last... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Ancient Human Ancestors Faced Fearsome Horned Crocodile |
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· 02/24/2010 5:14:22 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · 773+ views · · Live Science · · Feb 23, 2010 · · Charles Q. Choi · |
A newfound horned crocodile may have been the largest predator encountered by our ancestors in Africa, researchers now suggest. Scientists have even found bones from members of the human lineage bearing tooth marks from this reptile, whose scientific name, Crocodylus anthropophagus, means "man-eating crocodile." This predator, which lived some 1.84 million years ago, possessed a deep snout that would have made it look more robust than modern crocodiles. It also had prominent triangular horns. "They would have been visible mostly from the side as projections behind the eye," said researcher Christopher Brochu, a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Iowa.... |
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| Giant predatory shark fossil unearthed in Kansas |
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· 02/24/2010 9:51:06 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 60 replies · 1,270+ views · · bbc · · 24 February 2010 · · Matt Walker · |
The fossilised remains of a gigantic 10m-long predatory shark have been unearthed in Kansas, US. Scientists dug up a gigantic jawbone, teeth and scales belonging to the shark which lived 89 million years ago. The bottom-dwelling predator had huge tooth plates, which it likely used to crush large shelled animals such as giant clams. Palaeontologists already knew about the shark, but the new specimen suggests it was far bigger than previously thought. The scientists who made the discovery, published in the journal Cretaceous Research, last week also released details of other newly discovered giant plankton-eating fish that swam in prehistoric... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| New species of dinosaur found in eastern Utah rock |
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· 02/23/2010 2:19:37 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 22 replies · 525+ views · · Associated Press · · Feb. 23, 2010 · · Mike Stark · |
Fossils of a previously undiscovered species of dinosaur have been found in slabs of Utah sandstone that were so hard that explosives had to be used to free some of the remains, scientists said Tuesday. The bones found at Dinosaur National Monument belonged to a type of sauropod -- long-necked plant-eaters that were said to be the largest animal ever to roam land. The discovery included two complete skulls from other types of sauropods -- an extremely rare find, scientists said. |
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| Anatolia | |
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| History in the Remaking |
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· 02/23/2010 8:21:35 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 30 replies · 630+ views · · Newsweek · · 19 Feb 2010 -- · · Patrick Symmes · |
A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution. They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot -- the exact spot -- where humans... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Perperikon Reveals Its Epigraphic Mysteries |
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· 02/23/2010 6:15:18 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · 256+ views · · Standart News · · February 13, 2010 · · Irina Angelova · |
The first epigraphic monuments in Perperikon were discovered. They are dated back to the second half of 3rd century AD. All of them are in Latin, according to Prof Vassilka Gerassimova, one of Bulgaria's outstanding experts in ancient monuments. The archeological team of Prof Nikolay Ovcharov ran across the written monuments during the excavation works in Perperikon near the Roman road which was discovered last summer and branching towards the Rock Town. "Thus the Roman necropolis of Perperikon has been localized and will be studied," Ovcharov said. "Thanks to the decoded epigraphs, we now have the names of people... |
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| DHARMA Wine Hatch Discovered in Israel |
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· 02/20/2010 5:40:31 AM PST · · Posted by mom4kittys · · 19 replies · 766+ views · · thefoodsection · · 2/18/10 · · Posted by Josh Friedland · |
You may have hard the news that archaeologists have discovered a 1,400-year-old wine press in Southern Israel -- 25 miles south of Jerusalem -- an area which was once part of the Byzantine Empire. According to the scientists, the exceptionally large size of the press -- measuring 21 feet by 54 feet -- suggests that it was used to produce wine for export to Egypt, or Europe. But, could these archeologists have the story all wrong? To any "Lost" devotee, the unique octagonal shape of the press and its proximity to Egypt and Tunisia will bring to mind the work... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Ancient giant cattle genome first |
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· 02/20/2010 5:30:54 PM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 28 replies · 742+ views · · bbc · · 17 February 2010 · · Steven McKenzie · |
Scientists have analysed the DNA of ancient giant European wild cattle that died out almost 400 years ago. They have determined the first mitochondrial genome sequence from aurochs (Bos primigenius) from bone found in a cave in England. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed down from a mother to her offspring....... One of the researchers involved, Dr Ceiridwen Edwards, has previously investigated the remains of a polar bear found in the Scottish Highlands.... The species became extinct when a female animal died in a forest in Poland in 1627. Roman general and dictator Julius Caesar was said to have been impressed... |
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| Leaf Her Alone | |
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| This Tree's a Lady! |
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· 02/20/2010 2:46:11 PM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 37 replies · 720+ views · · livescience · · 04 February 2010 · |
Scientists have discovered the female sex hormone progesterone in a walnut tree, shaking up what's known about the different between plants and animals. Until now, scientists thought that only animals could make progesterone. A steroid hormone secreted by the ovaries, progesterone prepares the uterus for pregnancy and maintains pregnancy. A synthetic version, progestin, is used in birth control pills and other medications. "The significance of the unequivocal identification of progesterone cannot be overstated," write Guido F. Pauli and colleagues in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Natural Products. "While the biological role of progesterone has been extensively studied in mammals,... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Study shows how viruses changed human evolution |
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· 02/19/2010 4:51:16 PM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 9 replies · 195+ views · · Yahoo News · · 2-18-10 · · Reuters · |
LONDON (Reuters) -- Italian scientists said on Friday they had found evidence of how viruses helped change the course of human evolution and said their discovery could help in the design of better drugs and vaccines. They found more than 400 different mutations in 139 genes that play a role in people's risk of catching viruses -- a finding that may also help explain why some people sail through flu season unscathed while others seem to catch every bug around. Researchers from the Scientific Institute IRCCS, Milan University and the Politecnico di Milano analysed the genomes of 52 populations from... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| The dark hours for Thomas Jefferson |
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· 02/23/2010 11:24:57 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 37 replies · 605+ views · · Boston Globe · · 23 Feb 2010 · · Michael Kranish · |
MASSACHUSETTS FACED a crisis in 1778. In the midst of the Revolutionary War, some 4,000 British and Hessian prisoners were living in miserable conditions in camps around Boston. Rumors surged that a British force would try to free them by force. The cry went up: get these prisoners out of Massachusetts. Enter Thomas Jefferson and his Virginia neighbors. Thinking like a current-day congressman, Jefferson regarded the prisoners as an economic opportunity for the remote valley near his home at Monticello. The prison camp would pump money into his hometown of Charlottesville, along with much-needed craftsmen and laborers. It would be... |
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| Letters shed new light on British despair during the American War of Independence |
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· 02/19/2010 2:17:25 PM PST · · Posted by bruinbirdman · · 56 replies · 1,067+ views · · The Telegraph · · 2/19/2010 · · Philip Sherwell · |
Remarkable archive of letters has thrown new light on the despair of British commanders during the American War of Independence Their downbeat perspective contrasts dramatically with the exhortations of George III and his ministers in London who come across as hopelessly out-of-touch and absurdly optimistic. The letters show how British generals despaired at the hopeless optimism of King George III, left The documents, part of a collection that have been in private possession for more than two centuries, reveal a much gloomier analysis by British generals than previously believed. According to the collection which goes on sale at Sotheby's in... |
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| The Framers | |
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| The Classical Education of the Founding Fathers |
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· 02/21/2010 10:56:00 AM PST · · Posted by Lorianne · · 23 replies · 356+ views · · Memoria Press · · Spring 2007 · |
"Americans view the Founding Fathers in vacuo, isolated from the soil that nurtured them," says Traci Lee Simmons in his book, Climbing Parnassus: A New Apologia for Greek and Latin. For the Founders, says Simmons, these virtues came principally from two places: "the pulpit and the schoolroom." We are already fairly familiar with the explicitly Biblical influences on America's founding, but we are far less familiar with the classical influences on the Founders -- and how these two influences worked in concert to mold their education and their thinking. It is a well-known fact that literacy was prevalent in colonial times. "A... |
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| The General | |
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| Geo. Washington Presidential Library: $38 million gift to build library at Mount Vernon |
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· 02/20/2010 7:57:16 PM PST · · Posted by HokieMom · · 40 replies · 445+ views · · Washington Examiner · · 2/19/10 · · Matthew Barakat · |
There were no presidential libraries in the days of George Washington, so his papers and writings are scattered around the world. Some are lost forever -- Martha Washington, for instance, burned nearly all of her personal letters from her husband shortly before she died. But an unprecedented $38 million donation will allow George Washington's Mount Vernon estate to establish a library dedicated to scholarship on the nation's first president, in many ways filling the role of the modern presidential library. The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington is expected to open... |
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| The Example of Our First President |
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· 02/22/2010 9:31:27 AM PST · · Posted by Ed Hudgins · · 18 replies · 212+ views · · The Atlas Society - The Center for Objectivism · · 2/22/2004 · · Edward Hudgins · |
From the Archives:The Example of Our First President By Edward Hudgins February 22, 2004 -- George Washington unfortunately has become a clichÈ. For an older generation, he was too often treated as such a mythic figure that it was difficult to appreciate his true importance. In today's politically correct society many treat him as a white, male oppressor. Most of us celebrate his birthday by shopping the sales at the mall. This is not a bad use of our time, but it is appropriate to take a moment to reflect on the real greatness of the real Washington and the... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Amazing Original Photographs from the Civil War |
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· 02/24/2010 10:13:37 AM PST · · Posted by navysealdad · · 59 replies · 2,322+ views · · Angelfire · |
Whether you like history or not... These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. Probably a million wet plate photos were made during the civil war on glass plate. |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Video: 140 Year Old Hot Dog Found On Coney Island |
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· 02/25/2010 8:32:23 AM PST · · Posted by AtlasStalled · · 59 replies · 1,856+ views · · Friends of Ours · · 02/25/10 · · Friends of Ours · |
A 140-year-old hot dog has been discovered with a contemporaneous receipt encased in ice under one of the old buildings on Coney Island which formerly housed a restaurant operated by Charles Feltman who is credited with inventing the tasty treat. |
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| Between the Wars | |
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| 'Metropolis' Now |
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· 02/23/2010 4:53:09 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · 354+ views · · WSJ · · February 11, 2010 · · A.J. Goldmann · |
83 years after its Berlin premiere, "Metropolis" can finally be seen as Lang originally intended it. Well, almost. A restored version that incorporates over 20 minutes of newly discovered footage was screened last Friday at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival. Tickets to the gala, featuring the original score performed by a live symphony orchestra, sold out quickly. But throngs of cinéphiles braved subfreezing temperatures to congregate at Pariser Platz, where the film was beamed onto a screen set up at the Brandenburg Gate. Since the 1980s, there have been multiple attempts to reconstruct the film using imperfect sources. Until... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| The Crusades: When Christendom Pushed Back |
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· 02/20/2010 6:35:24 PM PST · · Posted by ventanax5 · · 37 replies · 1,383+ views · · New American · · Selwyn Duke · |
he year is 732 A.D., and Europe is under assault. Islam, born a mere 110 years earlier, is already in its adolescence, and the Muslim Moors are on the march. Growing in leaps and bounds, the Caliphate, as the Islamic realm is known, has thus far subdued much of Christendom, conquering the old Christian lands of the Mideast and North Africa in short order. Syria and Iraq fell in 636; Palestine in 638; and Egypt, which was not even an Arab land, fell in 642. North Africa, also not Arab, was under Muslim control by 709. Then came the year... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Vampire Squid Turns "Inside Out" |
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· 02/23/2010 9:01:20 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 27 replies · 833+ views · · National Geographic · |
The vampire squid can turn itself "inside out" to avoid predators -- as seen in a video just released by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute to emphasize the need to protect deep-sea species from the effects of human activities. This menacing looking squid is just one of many species "out of sight and out of mind" that could be threatened by human activities far away from the part of the ocean in which they live. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has released this video of the vampire squid to emphasize a report that raises a red flag about the earth's... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Small Dogs Originated in the Middle East |
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· 02/23/2010 5:26:03 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · 372+ views · · Discovery News · · Tuesday, February 23, 2010 · · Jennifer Viegas · |
Small dogs the world over can all trace their ancestry back to the Middle East, where the first diminutive canines emerged more than 12,000 years ago. A new study, which appears in BMC Biology, focused on a single gene responsible for size in dogs. Researchers found that the version of the gene IGF1 that is a major determinant of small size in dogs probably originated as a result of domestication of the Middle Eastern gray wolf, which also happens to be smaller than many other wolves. In terms of which came first, big dogs or small dogs, the answer is... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Megalithic site found in South Sumatra |
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· 02/23/2010 6:56:23 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · 335+ views · · Jakarta Post · · Wednesday, February 17, 2010 · · unattributed · |
PALEMBANG, South Sumatra: A megalithic settlement has recently been unearthed at Skendal village, 10 kilometers from the town of Pagaralam in South Sumatra. Irfan Wintarto, an official at the Lahat Culture and Tourism Agency's Historical and Archeological Preservation Department, said local residents had discovered around 36 types of rocks on a 150-by-300-meter plot in the middle of a 2-hectare coffee plantation. The site is currently being investigated by the Archeological Region Conservation and Heritage Center (BPPP). "The findings are believed to date back to around 5,000 B.C.," Irfan said. "The types of rocks and megaliths found are quite diverse." Among... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| A Millennium Conundrum [Indus Valley Script] |
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· 02/23/2010 5:55:43 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · 221+ views · · Asian Age · · 2010 · · Latika Padgaonkar · |
In what appears to be a new ground-breaking study, Unsealing the Indus Script: Anatomy of Its Decipherment released in November last year, author Malati J. Shendge claims that the riddles of the Harappan graphs which have bedevilled archaeologists, palaeographers and linguistic and other scholars for nearly a century have been largely deciphered. Shendge has decoded many of the seals, and the field is now open for a further understanding of a civilisation that came to an end with the invasion by the Indo-European peoples... Scholars tried to read linguistic elements into it; at times, the script was regarded as... |
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| end of digest #293 20100227 | |
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· Saturday, February 27, 2010 · 44 topics · 2460335 to 2455192 · 743 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 293rd issue. Last week's 40 topics didn't make it to Digest form until today, and I do apologize. Here's issue 292. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #294 Saturday, March 6, 2010 |
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| Egypt | |
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| DNA Shows that KV55 Mummy Probably Not Akhenaten [Smenkhare] |
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· 03/02/2010 7:00:36 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · 340+ views · · KV-64 blog · · Tuesday, March 2, 2010 · · Kate Phizackerley · |
If we identify the KV55 mummy as Smenkhare and assume that Akhenaten remains missing, we can add Akhenaten and Nefertiti into the family tree, while retaining KV55 (Smenkhare) as the father of Tutankhamun as shown by the Hawass team. It's tempting to consider that KV21B and the Younger Lady are also daughters of Akhenaten and Nefertiti. While not essential for my revised theory, this would neatly fit historical facts. In considering whether the DNA data would fit the revised family tree, it seems appropriate to consider that KV21B and the Younger Lady may also have been daughters of Akhenaten and... |
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| Massive head of pharaoh unearthed in Egypt |
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· 02/28/2010 11:56:11 AM PST · · Posted by Jet Jaguar · · 38 replies · 964+ views · · AP · · February 28, 2010 · |
Egypt's Culture Ministry says a team of Egyptian and European archaeologists has unearthed a large head made of red granite of an ancient pharaoh who ruled Egypt some 3,400 years ago. A ministry statement Sunday said the team discovered the head of Amenhotep III wearing the traditional white crown of the southern kingdom buried in the pharaoh's mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile in the southern city of Luxor. |
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| Statue head of King Tut's grandfather found in Luxor |
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· 02/28/2010 12:48:20 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 9 replies · 465+ views · · AFP · · Feb. 28, 2010 · |
AFP -- Egyptian archaeologists have unearthed a colossal statue head of the pharaoh whom DNA tests revealed last week was King Tutankhamun's grandfather, the government said on Sunday. The red granite head of King Amenhotep III, part of a larger 3,000 year-old statue, was discovered at the site of the pharaoh's funerary temple in Luxor, Egypt's culture ministry said in a statement. "The newly discovered head is intact and measures 2.5 metres (8.2 foot) high," antiquities chief Zahi Hawass was quoted as saying. "It is a masterpiece of highly artistic quality and shows a portrait of the king with very... |
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| Mammoth Told Me There'd Be Days Like These | |
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| New Waco museum reveals a mammoth undertaking |
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· 03/06/2010 5:08:14 AM PST · · Posted by wolfcreek · · 11 replies · 241+ views · · Austin American Statesman · · 3.6.2010 · · Pamela LeBlanc · |
WACO -- It's been more than 30 years since two men out hunting snakes pulled the first mammoth bones from a dry creek bed on the outskirts of Waco, but for the first time, the site has opened to the public. In all, 26 Columbian mammoths have been uncovered at the Waco Mammoth Site, and scientists think more might be buried on the 105-acre property, owned by Baylor University and the City of Waco, a few miles west of Interstate 35. |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| It's official: An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs |
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· 03/04/2010 1:37:39 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 123 replies · 1,540+ views · · Reuters · · March 4, 2010 · |
LONDON (Reuters) -- A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades. A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years' worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a "hellish environment" around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet. Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid... |
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| Early-bird dinosaur found in New Mexico |
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· 12/10/2009 11:32:45 AM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 13 replies · 522+ views · · Guardian · · 12/10/09 · · Ian Sample · |
Palaeontologists delighted to discover 213m-year-old remains of feathered meat-eater that retain intact air sacs in their bones The remains of a two-legged meat-eating predator that roamed the Earth at the dawn of dinosaurs have been uncovered in an ancient bone bed by fossil hunters. |
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| In Fossil Find, 'Anaconda' Meets 'Jurassic Park'(Snake Devouring Baby Dinosaur Eggs) |
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· 03/02/2010 9:37:54 AM PST · · Posted by Dallas59 · · 42 replies · 942+ views · · NPR · · 2/02/2010 · · NPR · |
Scientists have discovered a macabre death scene that took place 67 million years ago. The setting was a nest, in which a baby dinosaur had just hatched from an egg, only to face an 11-foot-long snake waiting to devour it. The moment was frozen forever when, apparently, the nest was buried in a sudden avalanche of mud or sand and everything was fossilized. Scientists have discovered a macabre death scene that took place 67 million years ago. The setting was a nest, in which a baby dinosaur had just hatched from an egg, only to face an 11-foot-long snake waiting... |
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| Climate | |
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| 'Snowball Earth': Glaciers, ice packs once met at Equator |
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· 03/05/2010 12:55:48 PM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 32 replies · 498+ views · · The Register · · 5th March 2010 12:47 GMT · · Lewis Page · |
American boffins say they have discovered evidence that almost the entire world was covered in sea ice and glaciers at certain points in the remote past, during so-called "snowball Earth" periods where the polar ice sheets met at the Equator. It were grim in the old days. Geologists probing conditions seen in the ancient world have long considered that there was a cold spell known as the Sturtian Glaciation about 716 million years ago. However there has been disagreement in boffinry circles as to just how severe this glaciation was. Now, researchers from Harvard uni in the States, funded by... |
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| Ice Once Covered the Equator |
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· 03/05/2010 6:15:13 PM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 10 replies · 308+ views · · LiveScience · · 3-5-10 · · LiveScience Staff · |
Sea ice may have covered the Earth's surface all the way to the equator hundreds of millions of years ago, a new study finds, adding more evidence to the theory that a "snowball Earth" once existed. The finding, detailed in the March 5 issue of the journal Science, also has implications for the survival and evolution of life on Earth through this bitter ice age. Geologists found evidence that tropical areas were once covered by glaciers by examining ancient tropical rocks that are now found in remote northwestern Canada. These rocks have moved because the Earth's surface, and the rocks... |
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| The big picture: 65 million years of temperature swings |
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· 02/26/2010 10:45:29 PM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 34 replies · 755+ views · · JoNova · · February 18th, 2010 · · Joanne · |
Greenland Temperatures -- last 10,000 years. Are we headed for an ice age? (See below for more detail.) David Lappi is a geologist from Alaska who has sent in a set of beautiful graphs -- including an especially prosaic one of the last 10,000 years in Greenland -- that he put together himself (and which I've copied here at the top).If you wonder where today's temperature fits in with the grand scheme of time on Earth since the dinosaurs were wiped out, here's the history. We start with the whole 65 million years, then zoom in, and zoom in again to the last 12,000... |
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| New Study Says Global Warming May Be Signal of Impending Ice Age |
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· 03/03/2010 6:49:16 PM PST · · Posted by Shellybenoit · · 28 replies · 742+ views · · The Lid/Helmholtz Assoc of German Research Centres · · 3/3/2010 · · The Lid · |
Back in the 1970s before people were screaming about global warming, scientists were warning us that the next ice age may be just around the corner. The big freeze scare was eventually pushed aside by the great man-made global warming hoax. Now a new study has been released that global warming may be just the Earth's warning that a new Ice Age is near. In the Earth's history thus far, there have been periods where glaciers covered much of Europe, each lasting about 100,000 years. These are separated by warmer interglacial periods lasting around 10,000 years. We are currently at... |
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| Were short warm periods typical for transitions between interglacial and glacial epochs? |
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· 03/03/2010 6:50:20 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 7 replies · 207+ views · · eurekalert.org · · March 2, 2010 · |
Researchers evaluate climate fluctuations from 115,000 years ago Halle (Saale)/Leipzig/Moscow. At the end of the last interglacial epoch, around 115,000 years ago, there were significant climate fluctuations. In Central and Eastern Europe, the slow transition from the Eemian Interglacial to the Weichselian Glacial was marked by a growing instability in vegetation trends with possibly at least two warming events. This is the finding of German and Russian climate researchers who have evaluated geochemical and pollen analyses of lake sediments in Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg and Russia. Writing in Quaternary International, scientists from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), the Saxon Academy... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| 'Pompeii-Like' Excavations Tell Us More About Toba Super-Eruption |
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· 03/04/2010 7:13:24 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · 506+ views · · ScienceDaily · · March 3, 2010 · · University of Oxford · |
Newly discovered archaeological sites in southern and northern India have revealed how people lived before and after the colossal Toba volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago... The seven-year project examines the environment that humans lived in, their stone tools, as well as the plants and animal bones of the time. The team has concluded that many forms of life survived the super-eruption, contrary to other research which has suggested significant animal extinctions and genetic bottlenecks. According to the team, a potentially ground-breaking implication of the new work is that the species responsible for making the stone tools in India was Homo... |
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| Climate, Culture, and Catastrophe in the Ancient World |
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· 02/27/2010 11:58:34 AM PST · · Posted by Little Bill · · 11 replies · 315+ views · · Sanford University · · 2001 · · Meehan · |
This page presents a summary narrative of and links to geological and paleoclimatalogical data bearing on the remarkable events of 3000 BCE (calendar years BC), when urban/technological society began. Most of ouromes from referenced scientific literature, although some of the studies, such as of the Mesopotamian delta,and certain sea level interpretations, are the author's. You will also find a handy chronological index HERE. A summary graph of events around 3200 BC will be found here. |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Early Humans Used Brain Power, Innovation and Teamwork to Dominate the Planet |
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· 03/04/2010 6:47:52 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · 218+ views · · Scientific American · · February 27, 2010 · · David Despain · |
The expression of capacities, Hill and Marean said, can be summed up, namely, as exceptional cognition, culture and cooperation. Each of the three C's was a topic of focus for the scientists. One of their goals at the conference was to pinpoint specific markers of these expressions, and then use them to identify the emergence of humans within the paleoanthropological record. |
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| Africa | |
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| Stone Age engraving traditions appear on ostrich eggshells [ Africa ] |
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· 03/04/2010 7:40:48 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · 308+ views · · Science News · · Monday, March 1st, 2010 · · Bruce Bower · |
...researchers say a cache of ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers. The unusually large sample of 270 engraved eggshell fragments, mostly excavated over the past several years at Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa, displays two standard design patterns, according to a team led by archaeologist Pierre-Jean Texier of the University of Bordeaux 1 in Talence, France. Each pattern enjoyed its own heyday between approximately 65,000 and 55,000 years ago, the investigators report in a paper to be published this week in the Proceedings of... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe' |
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· 03/06/2010 5:29:06 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · 310+ views · · BBC · · Mar 6, 2010 · · Steve Vickers · |
In many ways, the Lemba tribe of Zimbabwe and South Africa are just like their neighbours. But in other ways their customs are remarkably similar to Jewish ones. They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones. Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago. It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which confirm their... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Israel's Latest Sin -- Honoring Its Heritage |
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· 03/02/2010 4:19:23 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 11 replies · 257+ views · · Frontpagemagazine · · 3-2-10 · · P. David Hornik · |
When the Israeli cabinet announced the other day that the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem, would be included in a list of Israeli "heritage" sites, it touched off a wave of Palestinian violence and threats -- along with diplomatic protests that were all too concordant with the Palestinian bullying.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has launched the "heritage" program as a way of strengthening Israelis' connection with their Jewish and Zionist roots, initially left the two West Bank sites (though other West Bank sites were included) off the list, apparently fearing various kinds of fallout. Netanyahu... |
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| The Facts Are IN the Ground | |
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| Why Palestinians Riot Over Jewish Heritage Sites |
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· 03/03/2010 5:14:49 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 12 replies · 352+ views · · Frontpagemagazine · · 3-3-10 · · Moshe Dann · |
Last week saw an upsurge in Palestinian riots and attacks against Israeli vehicles in Gaza and the West Bank. What crime did Israel commit to invite the wave of violence? Israel's government simply announced that it intended to honor the country's heritage by including the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, and Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem in a list of Israeli national "heritage" sites. The violence-fueled Palestinian reaction may seem entirely disproportionate to Israel's offense. But a look at the historical background shows that it is not without grim precedent. For several decades, Palestinians have been attacking Jewish worshipers at... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Egyptian priests lived on junk food diet |
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· 02/27/2010 7:42:48 AM PST · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 56 replies · 1,185+ views · · Telegraph · · 02/26/2010 · |
The food of the gods in Ancient Egypt was more likely to guarantee an early grave than immortality, scientists have discovered. Delicious and bountiful banquets offered to the gods and eaten by Egyptian priests and their families were laden with artery-clogging saturated fat, research shows. The evidence comes from hieroglyphic inscriptions on temple walls and the priests' mummified remains -- which bear the unmistakable signs of damaged arteries and heart disease. Sumptuous meals of beef, wild fowl, bread, fruit, vegetables, cake, wine and beer were given up... |
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| Diet and Cuisine | |
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| Scientists catalog zoo of bacteria inside our guts |
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· 03/03/2010 3:22:06 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 38 replies · 500+ views · · Associated Press · · Mar 3, 2010 · · Seth Borenstein · |
The first results of an international effort to catalog the millions of non-human genes inside people found about 170 different bacteria species thriving in the average person's digestive tract. The study also found that people with inflammatory bowel disease had fewer distinct species inside the gut. More than 99 percent of the different types of genes in our bodies are not in fact human, but come from microbes. "I think it's important that people realize that we are not really human -- we are a walking colony of bacteria and they are crucial for our well being... |
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| Gut bacteria gene complement dwarfs human genome |
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· 03/04/2010 12:16:08 AM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 15 replies · 379+ views · · Nature News · · 3 March 2010 · · Andrew Bennett Hellman · |
Sequencing project finds that Europeans share a surprising number of bacteria. Researchers have unveiled a catalogue of genes from microbes found in the human gut. The information could reveal how 'friendly' gut bacteria interact with the body to influence nutrition and disease. "This is the most powerful microscope that's been used so far to describe microbial communities," says George Weinstock, a geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis who was not involved in the study. The human body contains about ten times as many microbes as human cells, and most of them live in the gut. The new study, published... |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| How the cell's powerhouses turn deadly - Mitochondria can trigger a lethal immune response after... |
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· 03/03/2010 10:26:45 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 35 replies · 1,179+ views · · Nature News · · 3 March 2010 · · Heidi Ledford · |
Mitochondria can trigger a lethal immune response after injuries. Carl Hauser's patient was dying. A broken pelvis had brought the patient to the hospital, and now it seemed that a severe bacterial infection was killing him. Hauser -- a trauma surgeon at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson -- and his colleagues performed test after test, but could not find any sign of infection. Finally, with nothing left to try and time running out, Hauser removed a 30-litre mass of clotted blood. His patient immediately recovered. It would take Hauser over 15 years to determine why the patient's... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Female Dung Beetles Evolved Elaborate Horns to Fight for the Choicest Poop |
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· 03/04/2010 6:18:11 PM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 21 replies · 335+ views · · Discover Magazine · |
Male animals often use their horns to fight over females, but at least one species' females use their horns to fight over excrement. The species, no surprise, is the dung beetle. Unlike many of the animals we usually associate with elaborate horns, antlers, or other head weaponry -- in which the male has the most impressive set -- dung beetle females have horns that put the male version to shame. |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Research points to early horse castration |
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· 03/04/2010 6:53:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 27 replies · 475+ views · · Horse Talk (New Zealand) · · March 2, 2010 · · unattributed · |
Most of the horses in the terracotta army in a Chinese emperor's tomb had no testicles, pointing to the possibility of equine castration some 2000 years ago. Yuan Jing, an archaeologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, studied the more than 600 terracotta horses within the tomb of Qinshihuang, the first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, who ruled from 221 BC to 207 BC. He noted that all the 520 horses that pulled chariots had penises but no testicles. However, some of the 116 cavalry horses were found to have testicles. Yuan said his findings gave some indication of... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Ring fort may have held Bronze Age sports arena [ Ireland ] |
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· 03/02/2010 7:33:04 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · 288+ views · · Irish Times · · February 25, 2010 · · Michael Parsons · |
A mysterious ring fort in Co Tipperary holds "massive potential for discoveries" according to archaeologists who have carried out the first survey of the site. Their initial findings suggest that the site may have been used for Bronze Age sporting contests in an arena that is the ancient equivalent of Semple Stadium. Archaeologists have long been curious about the origins of the Rathnadrinna Fort located about 3km south of the Rock of Cashel -- one of Ireland's most important heritage locations and seat of the High Kings of Munster. The unusually large and distinctive landmark is still subject to many... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Revealed: The African queen who called York home in the 4th century |
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· 02/27/2010 4:53:54 PM PST · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 29 replies · 751+ views · · Mail Online · · 27th February 2010 · |
Startling new forensic research has revealed that multicultural Britain is nothing new after discovering black Africans were living in high society in Roman York. A study of various remains and artefacts from the 4th century at the Yorkshire Museum shows North Africans were living there thousands of years ago. The most exciting results came from analysis of the so-called 'Ivory Bangle Lady' whose remains were found in 1901 on the city's Sycamore Terrace. Her skull was found buried with a range of jewellery including jet and elephant ivory bracelets, earrings, pendants and a glass mirror indicating she was wealthy and... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Dynasty of Priestesses [ Iron Age necropolis of Orthi Petra at Eleutherna on Crete ] |
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· 03/02/2010 7:16:04 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · 303+ views · · Archaeology · · March 1, 2010 · · Eti Bonn-Muller · |
For a quarter century, Greek excavation director Nicholas Stampolidis and his dedicated team have been unearthing the untold stories of the people buried some 2,800 years ago in the necropolis of Orthi Petra at Eleutherna on Crete. Until now, the site has perhaps been best known for the tomb its excavators dubbed "A1K1," an assemblage of 141 cremated individuals, all but two of whom were aristocratic men who likely fell in battle in foreign lands. Excavated between 1992 and 1996, this elaborate rock-cut tomb was brimming with fantastic burial goods that date from the ninth to the seventh century B.C.,... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Bringing bison back to North American landscapes |
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· 03/02/2010 7:08:12 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 49 replies · 483+ views · · University of Calgary · · Mar 2, 2010 · · Unknown · |
University of Calgary wildlife biologists involved in American bison international surveyThe next 10 to 20 years could be extremely significant for restoring wild populations of American bison to their original range, including the Canadian Rockies; but for this to happen, more land must be made available for herds to roam free, government policies must be updated and the public must change its attitude towards bison, according to a new international study on the species co-authored by University of Calgary experts. The publication released today by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, American Bison: Status Survey and Conservation Guidelines 2010,... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Rare fossil helps scientists trace ancestry of polar bears to brown bears |
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· 03/01/2010 4:35:36 PM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 14 replies · 281+ views · · Cox News · · 3-1-10 · · Randolph E. Schmid · |
WASHINGTON (Associated Press) -- When it comes to bears, the polar species seems to be the new kid on the block. A rare fossil jaw found in Norway's Svalbard archipelago is helping researchers confirm that polar bears evolved from brown bears only about 150,000 years ago. Polar bears live much of the year on the Arctic sea ice and have become something of a symbol of the threat of global warming, which is melting that ice. "Our results confirm that the polar bear is an evolutionarily young species that split off from brown bears some 150,000 years ago and evolved... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Oldest example of written English discovered in church |
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· 03/02/2010 6:23:06 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 51 replies · 1,115+ views · · Telegraph · · 01 Mar 2010 · · Telegraph · |
What is believed to be the first ever example of English in a British church has been discovered. It was written half a millennia ago and its message was serious enough to be painted carefully on the wall of England's finest cathedral. But now it seems no one can quite decipher exactly what the inscription on the wall of Salisbury Cathedral in Wiltshire actually says. It was hidden for 350 years behind a monument to a local aristocrat who was 'martyred' in the English Civil War for his support of King Charles I but rediscovered in January by astonished conservators.... |
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| A Secret Handshake Instead of a Kiss | |
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| Nail from the time of Christ's crucifixion found in a dig |
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· 03/02/2010 9:53:59 AM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 24 replies · 1,153+ views · · mirror.co.uk · · March 2, 2010 · · Euan Stretch · |
A nail from the time of Christ's crucifixion which was hidden by the same knights who featured in The Da Vinci Code has been found in a dig. The four-inch Roman relic, stored in an ornate box, was uncovered by archaeologists working at a fort thought to have been a former Knights Templar stronghold. It was buried with three skeletons and three swords, including one with the religious order's cross on its blade, on the tiny island of Ilheu de Pontinha, off Madeira. The iron nail is of the type used in thousands of crucifixions -- but it is special.... |
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| The Apple | |
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| An apple a day? Study shows soluble fiber boosts immune system |
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· 03/02/2010 2:43:08 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 21 replies · 430+ views · · U of Ill @ Urbana-Champaign · · Mar 2, 2010 · · Unknown · |
URBANA -- A new University of Illinois study touts the benefits of soluble fiber -- found in oats, apples, and nuts, for starters -- saying that it reduces the inflammation associated with obesity-related diseases and strengthens the immune system. "Soluble fiber changes the personality of immune cells -- they go from being pro-inflammatory, angry cells to anti-inflammatory, healing cells that help us recover faster from infection," said Gregory Freund, a professor in the U of I's College of Medicine and a faculty member in the College of Agriculture, Consumer and Environmental Sciences' Division of Nutritional Sciences. This happens because soluble fiber causes increased production of an... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Pieces of rare biblical manuscript reunited |
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· 02/27/2010 3:36:10 AM PST · · Posted by shove_it · · 7 replies · 583+ views · · Yahoo (AP) · · 26 Feb 10 · · Karoun Demirjian · |
JERUSALEM -- Two parts of an ancient biblical manuscript separated across centuries and continents were reunited for the first time in a joint display Friday, thanks to an accidental discovery that is helping illuminate a dark period in the history of the Hebrew Bible. The 1,300-year-old fragments, which are among only a handful of Hebrew biblical manuscripts known to have survived the era in which they were written, existed separately and with their relationship unknown, until a news photograph of one's public unveiling in 2007 caught the attention of the scholars who would eventually link them. Together, they make up... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Lasers lift dirt of ages from artworks |
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· 03/04/2010 7:35:58 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · 344+ views · · BBC · · March 2010 · · Doreen Walton · |
Physicists have applied the same laser techniques commonly used for tattoo removal to clean several famous works of art, including wall paintings. Laser cleaning is well established for stone and metal artefacts already. It has now been successfully applied to the wall paintings of the Sagrestia Vecchia and the Cappella del Manto in Santa Maria della Scala, Siena, Italy... Among them are Lorenzo Ghiberti's gilded bronze panels Porta del Paradiso, or Gate of Paradise, and Donatello's Renaissance bronze statue of David... The team says the technique is now having a significant impact in the field of cultural heritage conservation. Wall... |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| Tyrannical English king 'buried in Scotland' [ Richard II ] |
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· 03/04/2010 6:33:57 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · 408+ views · · The Scotsman · · Thursday, February 25, 2010 · · David Maddox · |
...further tests for full DNA analysis would require extra money which would not be covered by any planning conditions. Mr Pelling, a keen amateur historian, raised the issue of extra funding and possible repatriation during Scottish questions in Westminster yesterday... He added: "If Richard was discovered to be the Stirling skeleton, then the government would have to consider what the appropriate ceremony would be for repatriating the remains to England, and laying them to rest beside Richard's beloved wife, Anne of Bohemia. "This would then beg the question of who has lain in Westminster Abbey as Richard II for the... |
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| The Framers | |
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| Theory of a founding father's (Alexander Hamilton) African ancestry |
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· 07/23/2004 1:57:16 PM PDT · · Posted by Coleus · · 96 replies · 9,442+ views · · The Record · · July 23, 2004 · · Lawrence Aaron · |
As much as I thought I knew about Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary, nobody ever told me he was black. Yes. You heard it here first, folks. And you'll think about it from now on every time you take out a $10 bill. Hamilton biographer Ron Chernow is the latest one to explore the theory.I was totally blown away by that information when a friend casually mentioned Hamilton's link to two significant anniversaries -- the 250th anniversary of Columbia University, originally Kings College where he was schooled, and... |
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| The General | |
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| George Washington: "the Constitution is sacredly obligatory upon all.' |
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· 03/05/2010 7:14:11 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 13 replies · 226+ views · · The North Star National · · March 4th, 2010 · · Dan Sherrier · |
Our first president had some excellent advice in his farewell address to the nation, which he delivered via newspaper publication in September 1796. The entire speech remains worth reading today. Some of his points were specific to a time when the United States was young and fragile -- the Constitution was less than a decade old, after all -- but much of his wisdom continues to hold value. Pay attention. Pay attention. It doesn't hold value simply because he's George Washington, Super-President of Historical Myth and Noble Chopper of the Cherry Tree and Crosser of the Delaware. (Even Washington was not a perfect human... |
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| Hope 'n' Change | |
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| North Carolina school board votes to scrap diversity policy in favor of neighborhood schools |
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· 03/02/2010 5:36:48 PM PST · · Posted by cajuncow · · 34 replies · 629+ views · · Cox News · · 3-2-10 · · Mike Baker · |
RALEIGH, N.C. (Associated Press) -- A North Carolina school board has voted to scrap a policy of assigning students by socio-economic background in favor of a system of neighborhood schools. The 5-to-4 vote on Tuesday night approved a resolution to begin moving away from busing to achieve diversity. It was an illustration of the Wake County Public School Board's makeup. Board members in favor of the change were swept into office by a group of vocal parents who complained that the current student assignment plan took their children too far from home. |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Glacier Girl: The Back Story |
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· 02/27/2010 1:52:27 PM PST · · Posted by caveat emptor · · 25 replies · 892+ views · · Air & Space Magazine · · July 01, 2007 (reprint-1993) · · Karen Jensen · |
The journey on which the world's most famous fighter airplane [was recovered from beneath 268 feet of ice on Greenland's ice cap]. Great Britain was holding off Nazi Germany and the United States was rushing warplanes to British airfields. In 1942, Glacier Girl was a brand new Lockheed P-38F, one of hundreds of airplanes sent as part of U.S. Army Air Force had its pilots base-hop across the North Atlantic from Maine to Scotland. Not all squadrons made it across, and this particular one was forced down by weather to an emergency landing on an ice cap in Greenland. For... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Victor Davis Hanson: Tomorrow's Wars -- Enormous, massively destructive engagements may again be... |
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· 03/02/2010 5:22:03 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 32 replies · 997+ views · · City Journal · · Winter 2010 · · Victor Davis Hanson · |
Enormous, massively destructive engagements may again be on the horizon. "Have we not seen, then, in our lifetime the end of the Western way of war?" Two decades ago, I concluded The Western Way of War with that question. Since Western warfare had become so lethal and included the specter of nuclear escalation, I thought it doubtful that two Western states could any longer wage large head-to-head conventional battles. A decade earlier, John Keegan, in his classic The Face of Battle, had similarly suggested that it would be hard for modern European states to engage in infantry slugfests like the... |
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| Shorter Perspectives | |
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| Report Finds College Students Fail Basic Civics Test |
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· 02/28/2010 7:59:59 PM PST · · Posted by SFC Chromey · · 132 replies · 1,731+ views · · The New American · · Friday, 26 February 2010 14:48 · · Joe Wolverton, II · |
"Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it" is one of the most oft-quoted aphorisms of Edmund Burke, an 18th-century Irish-born member of the British Parliament and fearless friend of liberty. Judging from the results of a recent survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI), most of the 14,000 college students who participated sadly will be repeating history. Considering that most of the 14,000 students who completed the exam (7,000 seniors and 7,000 freshmen) scored an F on the portion of the test covering basic American history and institutions... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Popular Science Posts It's Entire 137 Year Archive Online For Free |
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· 03/04/2010 9:55:43 PM PST · · Posted by Dallas59 · · 46 replies · 1,135+ views · · PopSci · · 3/3/2010 · · PopSci · |
Linky TO Archives |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Police hunt for PNG dinosaur |
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· 03/11/2004 7:12:33 PM PST · · Posted by Piefloater · · 85 replies · 399+ views · · AAP/Ninemsn · · 12 Mar 2004 · |
Reports a live dinosaur had been sighted on a volcanic island of Papua New Guinea prompted the deployment of heavily-armed police in search of the mystery creature. Villagers in the superstitious island province of East New Britain this week said they fled in terror after seeing a three-metre tall, grey-coloured creature with a head like a dog and a tail like a crocodile. They said the creature was living among thick green plants in a mosquito-ridden marsh just outside the provincial capital Kokopo, near the devastated town of Rabaul which was buried by a volcanic eruption in 1994. Kokopo's Mayor... |
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| end of digest #294 20100306 | |
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· Saturday, March 6, 2010 · 44 topics · 2465423 to 2460401 · 743 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 294th issue. Again with the 44 topics! At the last minute I added New Waco museum reveals a mammoth undertaking which was posted by wolfcreek, but I didn't ping it because I was about to do the Digest. |
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This is simply a STUPENDOUS thread!
This thread will make you shiver with happiness
~Hugz
Thank you for this thread.
Hey, wow, thanks! Here’s the message I send to people who join the list —
Welcome to the Gods, Graves, Glyphs ping list.
To browse for topics, try this nice feature of the FreeRepublic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/godsgravesglyphs/index
Here’s the alpha list / digest topic:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/1173106/posts
add godsgravesglyphs to subscriptions
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/my/subscriptions?p=add;t=godsgravesglyphs
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #295 Saturday, March 13, 2010 |
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| Egypt | |
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| Renowned Egyptologist: The Jews Went to America and Took Control of its Economy -- They Have a Plan |
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· 03/12/2010 4:59:35 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 33 replies · 609+ views · · MEMRI · · 3-12-10 · |
Dr. Zahi Hawass, On Egyptian TV: 'The Jews Went to America and Took Control of its Economy -- They Have a Plan -- They Control the Entire World' -- In June 2009, internationally renowned Egyptologist and Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities secretary-general Zahi Hawass made headlines when he gave U.S. President Barack Obama a personal guided tour of the Pyramids. In February 2010, Dr. Hawass was in the news following the culmination of the two-year international and interdisciplinary investigation into King Tut's death that he led. A New York Times article last week noted his role in the restoration... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Egypt completes restoration of Maimonides synagogue |
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· 03/07/2010 9:14:23 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 7 replies · 4+ views · · Jerusalem Post · · 3-7-10 · · RON FRIEDMAN · |
Dignitaries from Israel and abroad fly in for Sunday's rededication. After a year-and-a-half of careful restoration work by the Egyptian authorities, the Maimonides Synagogue in Cairo is set to be rededicated on Sunday. The 19th-century synagogue and adjacent yeshiva, which stand on the site where Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the Rambam, worked and worshiped more than 800 years ago, was restored by the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). According to the Egyptian press, the restoration of the synagogue is part of a plan by the SCA to restore all the major religious sites in Egypt, including 10 synagogues. The... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Egyptian Queen's Burial Chamber Located In Saqqara |
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· 03/08/2010 7:01:28 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · 80+ views · · Red Orbit · · Thursday, 4 March 2010 · |
Queen Behenu's chamber, located inside her pyramid, was badly damaged except for two inner walls covered with spells meant to help her travel to the afterlife, Hawass said in a statement. Ancient Egyptians believed that carving religious spells on their royal burial chambers helped them get to heaven by granting special passages such as ladders, ramps, stairs, or even letting them fly there when they die. These engraved spells, known as Pyramid Texts, were most commonly used in royal tombs during the 5th and 6th dynasties, said Hawass... The 5th Dynasty lasted from 2465 to 2323 BC, while the 6th... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| Decapitated skeletons were Vikings: scientists |
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· 03/12/2010 9:51:21 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 25 replies · 849+ views · · AFP · · Mar 12, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Dozens of decapitated skeletons have been unearthed in southern England believed to be those of 1,000-year-old Vikings, scientists said Friday. > "To find out that the young men executed were Vikings is a thrilling development," he added. > |
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| Mass grave in Dorset contains remains of executed Viking warriors |
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· 03/12/2010 4:37:55 PM PST · · Posted by atomic conspiracy · · 20 replies · 975+ views · · The Times Online · · 3-12-10 · · Simon de Bruxelles · |
The captives, all well built young men in their late teens and early 20s, were herded to the place of execution. Fifty-four in total, their heads were hacked off and stacked neatly in a pile. The bodies were tossed into a pit where they remained a tangle of limbs and headless torsos until archaeologists following the route of a new road stumbled across the remains last year. Not the killing fields of Iraq or the Balkans but the Ridgeway, near Weymouth, an ancient track across the now tranquil Dorset countryside, where one thousand years ago a long forgotten massacre took... |
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| Beheaded Vikings found at Olympic site |
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· 03/12/2010 5:09:48 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 95 replies · 1,428+ views · · CNN · · March 12, 2010 · · Melissa Gray · |
London, England (CNN) -- They were 51 young men who met a grisly death far from home, their heads chopped off and their bodies thrown into a mass grave. Their resting place was unknown until last year, when workers excavating for a road near the London 2012 Olympic sailing venue in Weymouth, England, unearthed the grave. But questions remained about who the men were, how long they had been there and why they had been decapitated. On Friday, officials revealed that analysis of the men's teeth shows they were Vikings, executed with sharp blows to the head around a thousand... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Gas pipeline probe uncovers shipwrecks in Baltic Sea |
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· 03/09/2010 7:40:48 AM PST · · Posted by fishhound · · 18 replies · 132+ views · · Yahoo/AFP · · Mon Mar 8, 2:17 pm ET · · na · |
STOCKHOLM (AFP) -- A dozen previously unknown shipwrecks, some of them believed to be up to 1,000 years old, were discovered in the Baltic Sea during a probe of the sea bed to prepare for the installation of a large gas pipeline, the Swedish National Heritage Board said Monday. "We have manage to identify 12 shipwrecks, and nine of them are considered to be fairly old," Peter Norman, a senior advisor with the heritage board, told AFP. "We think many of the ships are from the 17th and 18th centuries and we think some could even be from the Middle... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Musk Ox Population Decline Due to Climate, Not Humans, Study Finds |
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· 03/08/2010 4:51:57 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 23 replies · 15+ views · · Pennsylvania State University · · Mar 8, 2010 · · Sara LaJeunesse? · |
A team of scientists has discovered that the drastic decline in Arctic musk ox populations that began roughly 12,000 years ago was due to a warming climate rather than to human hunting. "This is the first study to use ancient musk ox DNA collected from across the animal's former geographic range to test for human impacts on musk ox populations," said Beth Shapiro, the Shaffer Career Development assistant professor of biology at Penn State University and one of the team's leaders. "We found that, although human and musk ox populations overlapped in many regions across the globe, humans probably were... |
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| Diet and Cuisine | |
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| Everything You Ever Need to Know about Salt |
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· 03/11/2010 10:04:31 AM PST · · Posted by sodpoodle · · 103 replies · 1,476+ views · · Saltworks · · 03/11/2010 · · vanity · |
American salt manufacturers began iodizing salt in the 1920's, in cooperation with the government, after people in some parts of the country were found to be suffering from goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid gland caused by an easily-preventable iodine deficiency. People require less than 225 micrograms of iodine a day. Seafood as well as sea salt contains iodine naturally and the supplement is unnecessary if there are sufficient quantities of either in one's diet. Note: Natural sea salt is a healthy replacement for ordinary table salt. |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Antarctic Glacier Has Five-story Blood-red Waterfall of Primordial Ooze |
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· 03/06/2010 10:45:51 AM PST · · Posted by TaraP · · 73 replies · 2,906+ views · · Good.is · · Feb 24th, 2010 · |
There is a five-story, blood-red waterfall pouring slowly from the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica's McMurdo Dry Valley. Its back story, at Atlas Obscura, is simply remarkable: Roughly 2 million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist without heat, light, or oxygen, and are essentially the definition of "primordial ooze." The trapped lake has very high salinity... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Shellfish could supplant tree-ring climate data |
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· 03/08/2010 10:02:04 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 69 replies · 111+ views · · Nature News · · 8 March 2010 · · Richard A. Lovett · |
Temperature records gleaned from clamshells reveal accuracy of Norse sagas. Oxygen isotopes in clamshells may provide the most detailed record yet of global climate change, according to a team of scientists who studied a haul of ancient Icelandic molluscs. Most measures of palaeoclimate provide data on only average annual temperatures, says William Patterson, an isotope chemist at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and lead author of the study1. But molluscs grow continually, and the levels of different oxygen isotopes in their shells vary with the temperature of the water in which they live. The colder the water, the... |
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| Climate | |
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| Ancient crypt discovered [ Yemen ] |
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· 03/07/2010 7:10:30 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 36 replies · 15+ views · · Yemen Observer · · Sunday, March 7, 2010 · · Iscander al-Mamari · |
Tucked away in Ans directorate of Dhamar governorate, a local stumbled across an ancient crypt within a known archaeological area, while digging a well for drinking water. According to preliminary examinations, the crypt extends anywhere between 150 and 180 meters in length and reaches over 9 meters in height. Police in Dhamar governorate confirmed that the name of the local who stumbled across this magnificent find is Anwar Abdu-Rabbuh al-Kooli. Upon finding the crypt buried in the ground, al-Kooli reported the site to the local authorities. The police then secured the site to prevent any further tampering or access to... |
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| Africa | |
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| Sudan's forgotten pyramids |
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· 03/10/2010 7:15:38 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 17 replies · 595+ views · · Agence France-Presse · · 07 Mar 2010 · · Guillaume Lavallee · |
Archaeologists say the pyramids, cemeteries and ancient palaces of the Nubian Desert in northern Sudan hold mysteries to rival ancient Egypt. There is not a tourist in sight as the Sun sets over sand-swept pyramids at Meroe, in northern Sudan. "There is a magic beauty about these sites that is heightened by the privilege of being able to admire them alone, with the pyramids, the dunes and the sun," says Guillemette Andreu, head of antiquities at Paris' Louvre museum. "It really sets them apart from the Egyptian pyramids, whose beauty is slightly overshadowed by the tourist crowds." Meroe lies around... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Lost Jewish tribe 'found in Zimbabwe' |
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· 03/09/2010 10:19:33 PM PST · · Posted by Mount Athos · · 23 replies · 901+ views · · bbc news · · 8 March 2010 · · Steve Vickers · |
The Lemba people of Zimbabwe and South Africa may look like their compatriots, but they follow a very different set of customs and traditions. They do not eat pork, they practise male circumcision, they ritually slaughter their animals, some of their men wear skull caps and they put the Star of David on their gravestones. Their oral traditions claim that their ancestors were Jews who fled the Holy Land about 2,500 years ago. It may sound like another myth of a lost tribe of Israel, but British scientists have carried out DNA tests which have confirmed their Semitic origin. These... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| 'Rachel's Tomb was never Jewish' |
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· 03/07/2010 9:15:23 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 18 replies · 23+ views · · Jerusalem Post · · 3-7-10 · |
Speaking to Saudi paper, Turkish PM criticizes Israel's nat'l heritage list. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday continued his verbal assault on Israel, according to Saudi paper Al Wattan, which quoted him as saying that that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites." Erdogan was referring to Israel's recent inclusion of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb on its national heritage list, but it was unclear why he mentioned the Aksa Mosque, since that site was not included. Speaking to Palestinian... |
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| Rachel's Tomb was never Jewish |
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· 03/07/2010 9:24:51 PM PST · · Posted by Blackyce · · 35 replies · 60+ views · · The Jerusalem Post · · March 7, 2010 · · JPOST.COM STAFF · |
'Rachel's Tomb was never Jewish' By JPOST.COM STAFF 07/03/2010 12:47 Speaking to Saudi paper, Turkish PM criticizes Israel's nat'l heritage list. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday continued his verbal assault on Israel, according to Saudi paper Al Wattan, which quoted him as saying that that al Aksa Mosque, the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb "were not and never will be Jewish sites, but Islamic sites." Erdogan was referring to Israel's recent inclusion of the Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel's Tomb on its national heritage list, but it was unclear why he mentioned the Aksa... |
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| The history -- who ruled Palestine? |
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· 04/08/2002 12:52:26 PM PDT · · Posted by Oldeconomybuyer · · 46 replies · 2,390+ views · · Diversity Watch · |
3000BC -- Canaanites inhabit Palestine 1125BC -- Israelites conquer the Canaanites 1050BC -- Philistines conquer Israelites. 1000BC -- Under King David, Israelites conquer Philistines and establish the nation of Israel. After his son, King Solomon dies, Israel becomes divided: the north becoming Israel and the south becoming Judah. 722BC -- Israel falls to Assyria 586BC -- Babylon captures Judah -- This defeat resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of most of the Jews to Babylon -- the so-called Babylonian captivity. 539BC -- Under Cyrus the Great, the Persians conquered Babylonia. The Jews were allowed to return to... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Archaeological Discovery Supports Scripture...Once Again |
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· 03/10/2010 4:06:13 PM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 12 replies · 577+ views · · Breakpoint · · 03/09/2010 · · Charles Colson · |
Once again, archaeology confirms the accuracy of biblical history. That's good news, but should it affect how we believers view Scripture? Israeli archeologist Eilat Mazar has reported an exciting discovery -- evidence that newly unearthed fortifications in Jerusalem were built 3,000 years ago. Based on the age of pottery shards that she found at the site, Mazar believes that the fortifications were built by Solomon, just as described in the Old Testament. Of course that's interesting news for Jews and Christians, but there's a lot more to this than you might expect. As the Associated Press reported, "If the age of the... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Analysis: Violence in Abrahamic faiths |
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· 10/20/2007 11:32:45 PM PDT · · Posted by Halgr · · 89 replies · 447+ views · · UPI · · Oct. 19, 2007 · · SHAUN WATERMAN · |
There are similarities between violent extremists of all the Abrahamic religious faiths, according to a new study of ultra-Zionist settlers in Israel, fundamentalist Muslims in Britain and white supremacist Christians in the United States. The study found that extremists of all three religions shared a black-and-white, them-and-us mentality; saw themselves as victims; and tended to be drawn from alienated communities that were either culturally or geographically isolated from the mainstream of society. The study, conducted by the East-West Institute, a non-partisan... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| The Real Jews |
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· 03/20/2008 9:37:46 AM PDT · · Posted by Alex Murphy · · 8 replies · 952+ views · · Washington City Paper · · March 19, 2008 · · Angela Valdez · |
At 7 p.m. on a cold Thursday night, two SUVs with Maryland plates pull into a CVS parking lot at Florida Avenue and 7th Street NW. Half a dozen men in brightly colored robes emerge and begin to assemble a makeshift pulpit around a black wooden platform. Across the street, the go-go music blasting from a cell-phone store suddenly goes silent. Someone flips the switch on a little generator and two industrial lights flash on, casting a blinding halo around the men gathered by the stage. A tall man in red and gold steps to the mic. His voice booms... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| What the Byzantines Can Teach Us about Our National Security |
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· 03/05/2010 11:17:03 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 34 replies · 737+ views · · American Thinker · · March 06, 2010 · · Ishmael Jones · |
The Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Edward N. Luttwak Belknap Harvard, 498 pp. Civilization in the city of Rome was extinguished by the year 476, but scholars today recognize that the Roman Empire continued to thrive in its eastern capital of Constantinople, in what we call the Byzantine Empire. As Edward Luttwak notes, the Byzantines did not use the word "Byzantine." They called themselves Romans, and their enemies called them Romans as well. The Byzantine Empire carried on Roman traditions of civilization, commerce, law, and education for nearly a thousand years until they met a heroic end... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Pottery Leads to Discovery of Peace-seeking Women in American Southwest |
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· 03/10/2010 7:34:00 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · 321+ views · · University of Missouri · · Mar 9, 2010 · · Unknown · |
COLUMBIA, Mo. -- From the time of the Crusades to the modern day, war refugees have struggled to integrate into their new communities. They are often economically impoverished and socially isolated, which results in increased conflict, systematic violence and warfare, within and between communities as the new immigrants interact with and compete with the previously established inhabitants. Now, University of Missouri researcher Todd VanPool believes pottery found throughout the North American Southwest comes from a religion of peace-seeking women in the violent, 13th-century American Southwest. These women sought to find a way to integrate newly immigrating refugees and prevent the... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Scientists at UCSB discover 600 million-year-old origins of vision |
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· 03/11/2010 12:11:56 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 25 replies · 513+ views · · U of C Santa Barbara · · Mar 11, 2010 · · Unknown · |
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) -- By studying the hydra, a member of an ancient group of sea creatures that is still flourishing, scientists at UC Santa Barbara have made a discovery in understanding the origins of human vision. The finding is published in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a British journal of biology. Hydra are simple animals that, along with jellyfish, belong to the phylum cnidaria. Cnidarians first emerged 600 million years ago. "We determined which genetic 'gateway,' or ion channel, in the hydra is involved in light sensitivity," said senior author Todd H. Oakley,... |
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| Musings | |
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| Stark family donates 28 masterpieces to J. Paul Getty Trust |
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· 05/04/2005 3:25:48 AM PDT · · Posted by Republicanprofessor · · 35 replies · 426+ views · · Baltimore Sun · · 5/3/05 · · Associated Press · |
LOS ANGELES - The late Hollywood power broker and producer Ray Stark and his wife have donated 28 masterpiece sculptures to the J. Paul Getty Trust to establish a sculpture garden at the Getty Center. The 20th-century sculptures include the works of Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Barbara Hepworth, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Aristide Maillol, Joan Miro, Henry Moore and Isamu Noguchi, the Getty trust said Monday in a statement. The works are mainly bronze and were created between 1911 and 1988. "They're very important pieces, very important artists," John Giurini, spokesman for the Getty Trust, said Monday. He declined to... |
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| Getty fattens its Rubens trove |
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· 05/09/2006 6:42:03 AM PDT · · Posted by Republicanprofessor · · 26 replies · 462+ views · · Los Angeles Times · · May 8, 2006 · · Christopher Reynolds · |
The J. Paul Getty Museum, aiming to deepen its collection of works by Peter Paul Rubens in his prime, has made its first major acquisition since the January arrival of Michael Brand as director. The work, "The Calydonian Boar Hunt," was painted on an oak panel, 23 1/4 by 35 5/8 inches, apparently in 1611 or 1612. "It just shows to me a great master in his absolute peak form -- how magical painting can be, that deftness of touch," Brand said. Museum officials, who said they bought the work in late April from a London dealer, declined to disclose... |
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| Mammoth Told Me There'd Be Days Like These | |
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| New Waco museum reveals a mammoth undertaking |
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· 03/06/2010 5:08:14 AM PST · · Posted by wolfcreek · · 12 replies · 280+ views · · Austin American Statesman · · 3.6.2010 · · Pamela LeBlanc · |
WACO -- It's been more than 30 years since two men out hunting snakes pulled the first mammoth bones from a dry creek bed on the outskirts of Waco, but for the first time, the site has opened to the public. In all, 26 Columbian mammoths have been uncovered at the Waco Mammoth Site, and scientists think more might be buried on the 105-acre property, owned by Baylor University and the City of Waco, a few miles west of Interstate 35. |
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| The Revolution | |
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| The American Minute for March 11, 2010 - (Anti-Slavery Movement - Republican Party) |
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· 03/11/2010 4:08:51 AM PST · · Posted by Freedom'sWorthIt · · 23 replies · 216+ views · · The American Minute · · March 11, 2010 · · William Federer · |
Ben Franklin was the first president of the first anti-slavery society in the United States. In 1787, the Northwest Ordinance outlawed slavery in the Midwest. Richard Bassett, a Signer of the Constitution, converted to Methodism, freed all his slaves and paid them as hired labor. John Quincy Adams fought to end slavery by removing Congress' Gag Rule. In 1807, Congress passed the Slave Importation Act, prohibiting further importation of slaves. 19 of the 34 States outlawed slavery before the Civil War: Pennsylvania 1787, New Hampshire 1788, Connecticut 1788, Massachusetts 1788, Rhode Island 1790, Vermont 1791, New York 1799, Ohio 1803,... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Open to the public for the first time in 145 years, Brunel Tunnel under the Thames |
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· 03/12/2010 7:16:12 AM PST · · Posted by C19fan · · 32 replies · 1,020+ views · · Daily Mail · · March 12, 2010 · · Staff · |
The public is to get its first chance in 145 years to see the Brunnel tunnel under the Thames that was hailed as an eighth wonder of the world and a triumph of Victorian engineering. The tunnel is open today and tomorrow and a Fancy Fair originally held in 1852 below the river will be recreated at the nearby Brunel Museum. It was built between 1825 and 1843 by Marc Brunel and his son, Isambard, and was the first known to have been built beneath a navigable river. |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Remembering Iwo Jima and its importance to strategic airpower |
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· 03/08/2010 4:54:42 PM PST · · Posted by SandRat · · 10 replies · 20+ views · · Air Force News · · Capt. Timothy Lundberg, USAF · |
3/8/2010 - ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam (AFNS) -- More than 120 retirees, veterans and their families visited Andersen Air Force Base as part of their trip to Iwo Jima March 1 through 4 in remembrance of the 65th anniversary of the battle there. The visitors learned about the base's history and received briefings on the aircraft deployed here that are part of U.S. Pacific Command's continuous bomber presence and theatre security package. These veterans of Iwo Jima also visited Naval Base Guam and other historic sites on Guam prior to travelling to Iwo Jima March 3. On Feb. 19,... |
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| Obituaries | |
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| Andree Peel, French heroine who saved 102 Allied pilots from the Nazis, dies aged 105 |
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· 03/08/2010 2:16:46 PM PST · · Posted by naturalman1975 · · 32 replies · 40+ views · · Daily Mail (UK) · · 8th March 2010 · |
An unsung Second World War heroine who saved more than 100 lives and survived a Nazi death squad has died aged 105. Andree Peel, who was known as Agent Rose, helped 102 British and American pilots escape from her native France. The resistance fighter was imprisoned in two concentration camps but was liberated and went on to settle in Long Ashton, Bristol, after the war. She was the most highly decorated woman to survive the conflict and was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by her brother, General Maurice Virot. Mrs Peel was awarded the War Cross with palm, the War Cross... |
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| Shorter Perspectives | |
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| Collapse of the American Empire: swift, silent, certain |
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· 03/10/2010 12:06:55 AM PST · · Posted by SmokingJoe · · 88 replies · 1,948+ views · · Marketwatch · · March 9, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EST · · Paul B. Farrell · |
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- "One of the disturbing facts of history is that so many civilizations collapse," warns anthropologist Jared Diamond in "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." Many "civilizations share a sharp curve of decline. Indeed, a society's demise may begin only a decade or two after it reaches its peak population, wealth and power." Now, Harvard's Niall Ferguson, one of the world's leading financial historians, echoes Diamond's warning: "Imperial collapse may come much more suddenly than many historians imagine. A combination of fiscal deficits and military overstretch suggests that the United States may be the... |
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| Hope 'n' Change | |
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| God Bless Texas and the Texas Board of Education!! |
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· 03/12/2010 9:09:52 AM PST · · Posted by Jim Robinson · · 48 replies · 1,564+ views · · per Fox News Channel cable broadcast · |
Taking back our country, one state, one text book, twenty million young minds at a time! |
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| The State of Higher Education |
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· 03/06/2010 7:53:48 AM PST · · Posted by Davy Buck · · 5 replies · 175+ views · · Old Virginia Blog · · 03/06/2010 · · Richard G. Williams, Jr. · |
It was Montiesquieu who was the thinker most often cited by the Founding Fathers from 1760-1805, beating out even Blackstone and Locke. No doubt Montiesquieu has fallen out of favor due, at least in part, to his philosophical views, to wit: "God is related to the universe as Creator and Preserver; the laws by which He created all things are those by which He preserves them." ~ Spirit of Laws But his importance in influencing the Founding Fathers, as well as their familiarity with his work, makes this story all the more amazing, in a very sad sense. . .... |
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| My Son's Textbook "Screws" Ronald Reagan and John Paul II |
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· 03/11/2010 11:00:57 AM PST · · Posted by Shellybenoit · · 65 replies · 1,415+ views · · The Lid · · 3/11/2010 · · The Lid · |
I have spent much time during the past few evenings helping my son study for his History test later in the week. As I worked with him through his studies, I found that his class is presenting a new version of History, a version that never occurred. And while you can make a case for different interpretations of events that happened centuries ago, his text book and curriculum distorts events that I saw with my own eyes. The Book in question is published by McDougal Littell and is called World History Patterns of Interaction. The test covers much of the... |
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| The Roads Are Deeper Than the Lakes | |
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| Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre Photography - The Ruins of Detroit |
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· 02/28/2010 7:55:15 PM PST · · Posted by lowbridge · · 34 replies · 935+ views · · www.marchandmeffre.com · |
The ruins of Detroit At the beginning of the 20th Century, the city of Detroit developed rapidly thanks to the automobile industry. Until the 50's, its population rose to almost 2 million people. Detroit was the 4th most important city in the United States. It was the dazzling symbol of the American Dream City with its monumental skyscrapers and fancy neighborhoods. Increasing segregation and deindustrialization caused violent riots in 1967. The white middle-class exodus from the city accelerated and the suburbs grew. Firms and factories began to close or move to lower-wage states. Slowly, but inexorably downtown high-rise buildings emptied.... |
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| end of digest #295 20100313 | |
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· Saturday, March 13, 2010 · 34 topics · 2466677 to 2465594 · 745 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 295th issue. Last week I forgot to update the number of members, which was 745 (nice going!) rather than 743. This week we have a much more manageable 34 topics, and yet another great selection. Zahi Hawass blurted out his real feelings about the Jews, which also reflects the views in the Arab world, and elsewhere in the Nazi mentality of which the Arab world is a major subset. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #296 Saturday, March 20, 2010 |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Medieval Warm Period seen in western USA tree ring fire scars- 3,000 yr Sequoias Fire History |
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· 03/17/2010 6:52:08 PM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 15 replies · 458+ views · · Wattsupwiththat.com · · March 17, 2010 · · Anthony Watts · |
Here is just one more indication that despite what some would like you to believe, the MWP was not a regional "non event".Top: Mann/IPCC view, bottom historical view From a University of Arizona press release,Giant Sequoias Yield Longest Fire History from Tree RingsCalifornia's western Sierra Nevada had more frequent fires between 800 and 1300 than at any time in the past 3,000 years, according to a new study led by Thomas W. Swetnam, director of UA's Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. This cross-section of a giant sequoia tree shows some of the tree-rings and fire scars. The numbers indicate the year... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Smithsonian opens $21M human evolution hall |
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· 03/17/2010 9:45:29 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 37 replies · 499+ views · · hosted · · Mar 17 · · BRETT ZONGKER · |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History is opening a new permanent exhibit exploring human evolution over 6 million years. The nearly $21 million Hall of Human Origins opens Wednesday. It will include more than 285 fossils and artifacts, including the only Neanderthal skeleton in the United States.... |
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| The Hobbits | |
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| Hobbit Ancestors Once Colonized Indonesia Island |
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· 03/18/2010 6:05:41 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · 354+ views · · ABC News (from Reuters) · · March 17, 2010 · · Tan Ee Lyn, ed by Sugita Katyal · |
Ancestors of a hobbit-like species of humans may have colonized the Indonesian island of Flores as far back as a million years ago, much earlier than thought, according to a new study published Thursday. These early ancestors, or hominins, were previously thought to have arrived on the island about 800,000 years ago but artifacts found in a new archaeological site suggest they might have been around even earlier... The arrival of hominins is also believed to have resulted quickly in the mass death of giant tortoises and the Stegondon sondaari, a pygmy elephant, on the island. In their paper, the... |
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| Navigation | |
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| More evidence unearthed at ancient port of Muziris |
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· 03/19/2010 4:40:01 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · 115+ views · · The Hindu · · Sunday, March 14, 2010 · · A. Srivathsan · |
Pattanam, a small village located 25 km north of Kochi, is the new pilgrimage spot on the international archaeological map. This quiet place, archaeologists now confirm, was once the flourishing port known to the Romans as Muziris and sung in praise by the Tamil Sangam poets as Muciri. Every year since 2005, excavations have yielded artefacts, structures and even a canoe in one instance to confirm this conclusion. This year has also been productive for archaeologists. A figure of a pouncing lion carved in great detail on a semi precious stone and a bright micro metal object with intricate designs... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Kerala's possible Mediterranean links unearthed by researchers |
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· 03/19/2010 4:28:26 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · 107+ views · · Business Ghana · · March 9th 2010 · · GNA · |
A wide range of megalithic burials recently discovered in some northern districts of Kerala during a research project have thrown light on possible links between the Mediterranean and Kerala coasts in the prehistoric stone age that occurred between 6000 BC and 2000 BC. The researchers, however, say further studies and analysis are required to establish the thesis. Interestingly, the finds were unearthed at a time when the researchers have firmly established the maritime links between the Mediterranean region with Kerala since ancient times... The recent study was done by V P Devadas, principal investigator, as part of a project of... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| How discovery off the Norfolk coast holds the key to Norway's past |
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· 03/19/2010 4:22:22 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · 339+ views · · EDP24 · · Thursday, March 18, 2010 · · Sarah Brealey · |
It is just eight inches long, but its discovery changed what we know about prehistoric Europe and our ancestors. The harpoon, which was found by a Lowestoft fishing trawler in 1931, was yesterday under the lens of a Norwegian television crew, who are making a documentary on the origins of Norway. It is 14,000 years old, but in perfect condition, the points carved into it still sharp. It would have been used for hunting by modern man in late Paleolithic or early Mesolithic times; a time before written records when people lived in hunter-gatherer communities. But it is where it... |
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| Climate | |
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| About Belgrade |
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· 03/17/2010 4:43:47 AM PDT · · Posted by Stilmat · · 9 replies · 200+ views · · Infostar · · 17.03.2010 · · Aleksandar · |
Belgrade, city of very tumultuous history, one of the oldest in Europe. Its history has lasted for 7000 years. The area around the large rivers was inhabited in the Paleolithic period. From the older stone age, came the remains of human bones and skulls of Neanderthals, found in a quarry near Leötane, in a cave in the vicinity of the Cukarica Bajloni market. Remains of late Stone Age culture were found in Vinca, Zarkovo and Upper Town, above the confluence of the Sava and Danube. This indicates that the area of Belgrade has been continually inhabited and that the intensity... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Bulgaria Archaeologists, Architects Move to Save Cybele Temple |
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· 03/19/2010 4:32:02 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · 117+ views · · Novinite · · Friday, March 12, 2010 · · unattributed · |
A commission of archaeologists and architects is set on securing a National Monument status for the temple of Greek goddess Cybele in Bulgaria's Balchik. The absolutely unique Cybele temple was uncovered by accident in April 2007 at the construction site of a hotel owned by a local entrepreneur. The special commission has been appointed by Culture Minister Vezhdi Rashidov in order to figure out how to preserve the temple. The status of a National Monument is going to bring a total ban of any construction activities in the area of the Cybele temple. Currently, the invaluable archaeological site lies in... |
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| Thrace | |
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| Bulgaria: Archaeologists Finally Put Date on Ancient Starosel Tomb |
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· 03/18/2010 6:11:11 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · 290+ views · · BalkanTravellers.com · · Tuesday, March 16, 2010 · · unattributed (novinite.com) · |
A team of archaeologists from the Bulgarian National History Museum, with the help of a German lab, has finally managed to estimate the time of the construction of the largest underground temple on the Balkan Peninsula, the Thracian Starosel tomb to the fourth century BC. In the summer of 2009, the archaeological team, led by Dr. Ivan Hristov, took samples from a stake in the middle of the tomb where gifts to the Greek goddess of the hearth Hestia were laid... The sample underwent radio carbon dating analysis in Dr. Bernd Krommer's laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany, which showed that the... |
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| Egypt | |
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| A blue mystery (Crawling for cobalt) |
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· 03/17/2010 11:54:46 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 7 replies · 990+ views · · Washington University · · Mar 17, 2010 · · Diana Lutz · |
Jennifer Smith, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was belly crawling her way to the end of a long, narrow tunnel carved in the rock at a desert oasis by Egyptians who lived in the time of the pharaohs. "I was crawling along when suddenly I felt stabbed in the chest," she says. "I looked down and saw that I was pressing against the broken end of a long bone. That freaked me out because at first I thought I was crawling over bodies, but I looked up... |
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| King Thoth | |
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| Huge monkey god statue found |
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· 03/18/2010 8:08:35 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 70 replies · 1,163+ views · · Straits Times · · Tuesday, March 16, 2010 · · AFP · |
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a colossal ancient statue of the pharaonic deity of wisdom, Thoth, in the shape of a baboon, the council of antiquities said in a statement on Tuesday. The four-metre tall statue was discovered in four pieces along with two statues while workers were lowering ground waters beneath Luxor to help preserve the city's pharaonic temples, the statement said. It dates back to the 18th Dynasty, which ruled Egypt until 1292 BC. 'It is the first time that a statue of Thoth, depicting him as a monkey, of this magnitude has been discovered,' Mansur Boraik, head of... |
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| Not So Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Medieval Child's Brain Found Preserved |
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· 03/19/2010 4:17:00 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · 266+ views · · Discovery News · · Monday, March 15, 2010 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
An international team of researchers has identified intact neurons and cerebral cells in a mummified medieval brain, according to a study published in the journal Neuroimage. Found inside the skull of a 13th century A.D. 18-month-old child from northwestern France, the brain had been fixed in formalin solution since its discovery in 1998. "Although reduced by about 80 percent of its original weight, it has retained its anatomical characteristics and most of all, to a certain degree its cell structures," anatomist and palaeopathologist Frank Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, told Discovery News. |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Ancient crucifix found in Gloucestershire is treasure |
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· 03/19/2010 8:04:49 AM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 20 replies · 860+ views · · BBC · · March 18, 2010 · |
A late-Medieval crucifix found in Gloucestershire has been declared treasure by a coroner.The 500-year-old silver pendant was discovered by a man in Yanworth, near Cirencester, in June 2009. It depicts Christ on the front flanked by the Virgin Mary and John the Evangelist and on the reverse, St Christopher carrying the Christ Child. Cirencester's Corinium museum hopes to buy the cross, which is now being valued by independent auctioneers. Kurt Adams, finds liaison officer for Gloucestershire and Avon, said: "Finds such as this silver cross are a very rare finds, especially when considering this object is a truly exceptional example... |
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| [Gloucestershire's] Cheese Rolling Abandoned |
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· 03/14/2010 4:01:06 PM PDT · · Posted by Diana in Wisconsin · · 33 replies · 510+ views · · Med India · · March 13, 2010 · · Staff Writer · |
A 200-year old traditional festival of rolling the cheese down a steep hill has been canceled following rising fears over the safety of the participants. The age-old festival saw participants chase down large blocks of Double Gloucester cheeses down the steep side of Cooper's Hill with injuries being a common side effect of the event. However the rising popularity of the event means that a large number of people gather to watch the chase with last year's event boasting of a 15,000 strong spectators. The regional police contacted the organizing committee and advised them to cancel this year's event after... |
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| Big Buttons | |
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| Saxon object mystery for Canterbury experts |
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· 03/18/2010 7:14:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 43 replies · 805+ views · · BBC · · Wednesday, March 17, 2010 · · unattributed · |
Experts have been unable to identify the silver, bronze and wooden disc A Saxon object which was uncovered in an archaeological dig in Kent cannot be identified by experts. The circular silver, bronze and wooden disk was found in a Saxon burial ground at The Meads, Sittingbourne, in 2008. Despite using microscopes, X-rays and reading articles about burial grounds, the Canterbury Archaeological Trust (CAT) has been unable to identify it. CAT believe that the object could be a decorative form of mount as it was discovered next to a sword. Finds manager of CAT Andrew Richardson said: "We don't currently... |
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| All Is True | |
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| 'Lost' Shakespeare Play Double Falsehood Published |
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· 03/16/2010 12:25:03 AM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 29 replies · 374+ views · · BBC · · Monday, 15 March 2010 · |
A play which was first discovered nearly 300 years ago has been credited to William Shakespeare. The work, titled Double Falsehood, was written by the playwright and another dramatist, John Fletcher. Theatre impresario Lewis Theobald presented the play in the 18th century as an adaptation of a Shakespeare play but it was dismissed as a forgery. But scholars for British Shakespeare publisher, Arden, now believe the Bard wrote large parts of the play. Researchers think the play is based on a long-lost work called Cardenio, which was itself based on Don Quixote. "I think Shakespeare's hand can be discerned in... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Unseen images of a lost London (Victoria/Edwardian vs. Modern) |
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· 03/18/2010 6:47:11 AM PDT · · Posted by C19fan · · 13 replies · 875+ views · · Daily Mail · · March 18, 2010 · · Claire Cohen · |
They are a remarkable window onto a bygone age. A snapshot of a city in transition - with horse-drawn carts and cobbled streets replaced by a booming industrial revolution. Lost in the archives of English Heritage for 25 years, these never-before published images have now been compiled into a book. From Victorian London to the devastation of two world wars, they provide a unique record of a vanishing way of life in the capital. Here, CLAIRE COHEN compares the London of a century ago with photographs taken at the same locations today. |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Hadrian's Wall lights up to mark 1600th anniversary of the end of Roman rule |
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· 03/14/2010 5:45:20 PM PDT · · Posted by naturalman1975 · · 64 replies · 1,567+ views · · Daily Mail (UK) · · 14th March 2010 · · Rhianna King · |
The majestic Hadrian's Wall is an awe-inspiring sight at the best of times. But last night it took on a magical new light as 500 flaming torches were dotted end to end along the 84-mile long Roman fortification. As night fell, a group of 500 volunteers holding gas-powered beacons and standing 250m apart created a 30 minute 'line of light' in a spectacle to mark the 1600th anniversary of the end of Roman rule. |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Honey bees secret world of heat revealed |
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· 03/17/2010 9:43:10 PM PDT · · Posted by fishhound · · 60 replies · 1,059+ views · · The Telegraph UK · · 13 Mar 2010 · · Richard Gray, Science Correspondent · |
The secret of honey bees' success has been discovered living deep inside their hives - a special type of bee which acts like a living radiator, warming the nest and controlling the colony's complex social structure. The "heater bees" have been found to play a crucial, and previously unappreciated, role in the survival of honey bee colonies. Using new technology that allows sceintists to see the temperature inside the bee hives, researchers have been able to see how heater bees use their own bodies to provide a unique form of central heating within a hive. They have found that these... |
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| Diet and Cuisine | |
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| New beer made from pre-Prohibition recipe |
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· 03/18/2010 8:04:22 AM PDT · · Posted by 1rudeboy · · 53 replies · 1,045+ views · · Chicago Sun-Times · · March 18, 2010 · · Sandra Guy · |
MillerCoors will test a new full-bodied beer based on an unexpectedly unearthed pre-Prohibition recipe in select historic bars in Chicago, possibly including Lottie's in Bucktown, a company spokesman said Wednesday. The beer, available only on draft starting in May, is called Batch 19 to signify the year that Prohibition was ratified, 1919, said MillerCoors spokesman Peter Marino. It took effect in 1920. Marino said Keith Villa, a master brewer at MillerCoors' brewery in Golden, Colo., discovered the recipe six years ago when Villa helped rescue archival records from the brewery's flooded basement. Villa was intrigued by the recipes that the... |
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| China | |
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| Traditional Theory Challenged After Tea Leaves Found in Famous Chinese Tomb |
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· 03/17/2010 10:42:46 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 18 replies · 382+ views · · Xinhua · · 2010-03-18 · |
Chinese archeologists have found remnants of tea leaves in tea sets unearthed from the family graveyard of the country's first known anthropologist, a man who lived 900 years ago. The finding challenge the traditional theory that infused tea became popular only in modern times, said Zhang Yun, a researcher with Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology. Pieces of green tea were found in a dozen bronze, porcelain and stone tea sets unearthed from a cluster of 29 tombs in Lantian County, he said. Zhang led the excavations that lasted from December 2007 to December 2009, which produced a variety of sacrificial... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Mummy find in China desert stirs ethnic debate [Caucasian Features] |
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· 03/16/2010 3:18:32 PM PDT · · Posted by James C. Bennett · · 33 replies · 1,661+ views · · The Times of India · · 17 March 2010 · · Nicholas Wade · |
In the middle of a terrifying desert north of Tibet, Chinese archaeologists have excavated an extraordinary cemetery. Its inhabitants died almost 4,000 years ago, yet their bodies have been well preserved by the dry air. The cemetery lies in what is now China's northwest province of Xinjiang, yet the people have European features, with brown hair and long noses. Their remains, though lying in one of the world's largest deserts, are buried in upside-down boats. And where tombstones might stand, declaring pious hope for some god's mercy in the afterlife, their cemetery sports instead a vigorous forest of phallic symbols,... |
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| Africa | |
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| When did the first 'modern' human beings appear in the Iberian Peninsula? |
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· 03/15/2010 1:20:40 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · 399+ views · · Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona · · Mar 15, 2010 · · Unknown · |
A research project at the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona supports the hypothesis that there was no overlap or relationship with the Neanderthals. Research carried out by a group of archaeologists from the Centre for Prehistoric Archaeological Heritage Studies of the Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona (CEPAP_UAB) at the Cova Gran site (Lleida) has contributed to stirring up scientific debate about the appearance of the first "modern" human beings on the Iberian Peninsula and their possible bearing on the extinction of the Neanderthals. The samples obtained at Cova Gran using Carbon 14 dating refer to a period of between 34,000 and 32,000 years... |
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| Life Imitating Art, Vice Versa | |
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| Headless Man's Tomb Found Under Maya Torture Mural |
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· 03/14/2010 8:15:25 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 37 replies · 820+ views · · National Geographic News · · March 12, 2010 · · John Roach · |
The tomb of a headless man adorned with jade has been discovered beneath an ancient Mexican chamber famously painted with scenes of torture. Found under the Temple of Murals at the Maya site of Bonampak, the man was either a captive warrior who was sacrificed -- perhaps one of the victims in the mural -- or a relative of the city's ruler, scientists speculate... At the time of the murals' creation, about A.D. 790, Bonampak was a city of thousands. Today its most prominent vestige is a long-overgrown, partially excavated acropolis in the middle of a vast tropical rain... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Emile Fradin, peasant-proprietor of the Glozel hoard, died on February 10th, aged 103 |
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· 03/14/2010 6:49:58 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · 483+ views · · The Economist · · March 11th 2010 · · unattributed · |
The finds were hugely intriguing. Visitors to Mr Fradin's museum, admission four francs, would find -- will still find -- masks and carvings of faces without mouths; bones pierced with holes, with the sun's rays scratched round them; ceramic pots, schist rings, polished stones. Some figures were hermaphrodite idols, with phalluses in their foreheads. Several bone carvings showed reindeer running, though reindeer were thought to have died out in that part of France 10,000 years earlier. But most exciting were the dozens of square clay tablets inscribed with letters which, if Neolithic, predated by many millennia the Phoenician characters from... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Vatican Researcher Claims to Have Found Text on Shroud of Turin |
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· 11/22/2009 8:48:25 AM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 12 replies · 567+ views · · Christian Post · · 11/21/2009 · · Aaron Leichman · |
A Vatican researcher claims she found nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin that includes the words "Jesus Nazarene" and mention of a death sentence. Barabara Frale, who makes the claim in a new book, says the faint writing emerged through a computer analysis of photos of the shroud, which is not normally accessible for study. Frale believes the text -- a jumble of Greek, Latin and Aramaic -- was written on a document by a clerk to identify the body and that the ink had seeped into the cloth. Despite the historian's claim, skeptics, not surprisingly, were quick... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Iraqi Author Aref Alwan: The Jews Have an Historic Right to Palestine |
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· 03/17/2010 9:22:52 AM PDT · · Posted by PRePublic · · 17 replies · 223+ views · · memri · · Apr, 2008 · |
Iraqi Author 'Aref 'Alwan: The Jews Have an Historic Right to Palestine In an article posted December 7, 2007, on the leftist website www.ahewar.org,[1] 'Aref 'Alwan, an Iraqi author and playwright who resides in London and is the author of 12 novels,[2] states that the Jews have an historic right to Palestine because their presence there preceded the Arab conquest and has continued to this day. In the article, titled "Do the Jews Have Any Less Right to Palestine than the Arabs?" 'Alwan called on the Arab world to acknowledge the Jews' right to Palestine, because justice demanded it and... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| The Eichmann Files - Classified Documents Could Be Released after 50 Years |
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· 03/16/2010 8:16:08 PM PDT · · Posted by Titus-Maximus · · 15 replies · 581+ views · · Spiegel · · 3/11/10 · · Leon Dische Becker · |
Fifty years after Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann's arrest by the Israeli Mossad in Argentina, basic details about his 15 years as a fugitive remain a government secret. The files kept by Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, remain classified today -- allegedly for reasons of national security. A German journalist is now suing in a federal court for the release of the files. Fifty years have passed since Adolf Eichmann's arrest, but the German foreign intelligence agency, the BND, is still hoping to prevent the release of files detailing his post-war movements. A Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig is... |
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| Up to 25,000 died in Dresden's WWII bombing - report |
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· 03/18/2010 6:08:22 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 37 replies · 524+ views · · BBC · · Mar 18, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Up to 25,000 people died in the Allied bombing of Dresden during World War II - fewer than often estimated, an official German report has concluded.The Dresden Historians' Commission published its report after five years of research into the 13-15 February 1945 air raid by Britain and the US. The study was aimed at ending an ongoing debate on the number of casualties in the German city. Germany's far-right groups claim that up to 500,000 people died. They say the bombing - which unleashed a firestorm in the historic city when Nazi Germany was already close to defeat - constituted... |
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| Japan's World War blunder |
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· 03/14/2010 9:36:52 AM PDT · · Posted by Saije · · 46 replies · 1,224+ views · · Toronto Sun · · 3/14/2010 · · Eric Margolis · |
Sixty-five years ago this month, three U.S. Marine Corps divisions were assaulting the heavily fortified volcanic island of Iwo Jima. In the bloody battle, 6,821 Americans and some 33,000 Japanese died or went missing. My late father, Henry M. Margolis, fought at Iwo as a member of the renowned 5th Marine Amphibious Division. So frightful was the battle, he rarely spoke of it in later years. The United States military faced a well-armed, courageous Japanese foe in the Pacific campaign and won decisive victories, such as Midway, the Marianas and Leyte, that rank among history's most glorious battles. A leading... |
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| Pages | |
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| Ain't Gonna Study War No More (Borders Bookstore vs. Universities; VDH ping) |
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· 03/18/2010 6:12:31 AM PDT · · Posted by C19fan · · 18 replies · 433+ views · · National Review Online Corner · · March 18, 2010 · · Peter Robinson · |
Today on Uncommon Knowledge, Victor Davis Hanson, military historian and author of Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern, contrasts the recent collapse of military history as an academic discipline with the abiding interest in the subject displayed by ordinary Americans. If we walked right over to the campus bookstore or looked in the university's catalog of classes, we would see gender studies this, gender studies that, anything with "studies" -- leisure studies, race studies, environmental studies. Military history? Not there. But if we walked right down to Borders Books, a commercial enterprise, we'd see that under... |
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| Obituaries | |
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| Actor Peter Graves found dead at his home in Pacific Palisades |
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· 03/14/2010 6:17:55 PM PDT · · Posted by Daffynition · · 202 replies · 6,922+ views · · LAT · · March 14, 2010 · · staff reporter · |
Actor Peter Graves was found dead Sunday at his home in Pacific Palisades, according to law enforcement sources. Graves, who stared in "Mission: Impossible," "Airplane!" and Billy Wilder's "Stalag 17"--apparently died of natural causes, the sources said. Graves was 83, according to a biography on the website IMDB.com. [snip] |
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| Peter Graves, Spymaster and Host, Is Dead at 83 |
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· 03/14/2010 7:31:00 PM PDT · · Posted by Brandonmark · · 57 replies · 2,048+ views · · The New York Times · · March 14, 2010 · · MICHAEL POLLAK · |
Peter Graves, the cool spymaster of television's "Mission Impossible" and the dignified host of the "Biography" series, who successfully spoofed his own gravitas in the "Airplane" movie farces, died Sunday. He was 83. He died of a heart attack at his home in Pacific Palisades, Calif., said Fred Barman, his business manager. It was a testament to Mr. Graves's earnest, unhammy ability to make fun of himself that after decades of playing square he-men and straitlaced authority figures, he was perhaps best known to younger audiences for a deadpan line in "Airplane!" ("Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?") and... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Five reasons Henrietta Lacks is the most important woman in medical history |
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· 03/17/2010 4:28:37 PM PDT · · Posted by James C. Bennett · · 13 replies · 463+ views · · Popular Science · · 5/2/2010 · · Popular Science · |
In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a poor woman with a middle-school education, made one of the greatest medical contributions ever. Her cells, taken from a cervical-cancer biopsy, became the first immortal human cell line -- the cells reproduce infinitely in a lab. Although other immortal lines have since been established, Lacks's "HeLa" cells are the standard in labs around the world. Together they outweigh 100 Empire State Buildings and could circle the equator three times. This month, PopSci contributor Rebecca Skloot's book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, tells the story behind the woman who revolutionized modern medicine. Here, five reasons we should... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| I Was A Spy For The FBI (March 1961 article in Ebony Magazine) |
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· 03/17/2010 2:43:57 PM PDT · · Posted by lowbridge · · 7 replies · 409+ views · · Ebony Magazine · · March 1961 · · Julia Clarice Brown · |
Housewife bares communist plot to infiltrate civil rights organizations and negro churches |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Montpelier to celebrate James Madison's birthday |
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· 03/14/2010 9:45:43 AM PDT · · Posted by Saije · · 3 replies · 135+ views · · Culpeper Star-Exponent · · 3/14/2010 · · Alison Brophy-Champion · |
James Madison's Orange County home offers free admission all day Tuesday in honor of the fourth president's 259th birthday. Born 1751 at Port Conway in King George while on a visit to his grandmother, Madison was raised at Montpelier, the oldest of 12 children. He is buried on the grounds of his lifelong home in the family cemetery, site of a special ceremony in honor of his birthday March 16 at 1:30 p.m. Former Deputy Secretary of Education Eugene Hickock will deliver remarks at the cemetery along with Quantico Marine Corps Base Chief of Staff Col. Thompson Gerke, who will... |
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| end of digest #296 20100320 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #297 Saturday, March 27, 2010 |
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| The Revolution | |
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| How Apropos - Obama Signs ObamaCare On 235th Anniv. Of Henry's "Give Me Liberty, Or Give Me Death" |
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· 03/23/2010 10:58:31 AM PDT · · Posted by Starman417 · · 31 replies · 338+ views · · Flopping Aces · · 03-23-10 · · Aye Chihuahu · |
I find it appropriate, though certainly and unintentionally ironic, that this date was chosen for the signing of the health care reform bill which will, over both the short and long haul, forge chains with which the American People will be bound. What's the irony you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, on this date in 1775 Patrick Henry delivered what is one of the most often quoted lines ever delivered: "Give me Liberty, or give me Death." Patrick Henry's speech served to urge the American People to shed the chains of Britain. The irony continues if... |
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| This Day in History: The Stamp Act is Passed! |
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· 03/22/2010 8:00:32 AM PDT · · Posted by McBuff · · 32 replies · 1,068+ views · · Vanity · · 3/22/2010 · · McBuff · |
George Santayana said that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeating history. Today marks the 245 anniversary of the passing of The Stamp Act. It was repealed one year later, however the spark of the American Revolution was ignited. In this most timely hour, let us learn from our history, let us learn from the ways of the sons of liberty, let us be heartened by their example. A spark has been ignited and a new revolution is underway! |
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| "When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary..." |
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· 03/20/2010 5:41:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SE Mom · · 85 replies · 2,015+ views · · The Pennsylvania Packet · · 4 July, 1776 · · Hancock,Adams,Paine et al · |
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life,... |
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| Headed for Auction: Back-Channel Gloom on Revolutionary War |
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· 03/23/2010 6:18:29 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 32 replies · 617+ views · · NY Times · · March 22, 2010 · · SAM ROBERTS · |
Letters to and from Henry Strachey, secretary to the British commanders in chief, are being auctioned as the Copley Library sells its collection. Despite King George's boast that "once these rebels have felt a smart blow, they will submit," back-channel messages from British generals and diplomatic officials in America during the Revolutionary War, some of them previously unpublished, turn out to have been decidedly more pessimistic. As early as June 1775, after the Battle of Bunker Hill -- which the Redcoats technically won -- Gen. John Burgoyne pronounced British military prospects in America "gloomy" in what he called "a crisis... |
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| Early America | |
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| Scotch Irish Settlement of the Shenandoah Valley |
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· 03/20/2010 8:00:24 AM PDT · · Posted by jay1949 · · 43 replies · 562+ views · · Backcountry Notes · · MArch 20, 2010 · · Jay Henderson · |
"These [Scotch Irish settlers] were the right sort of people to found a commonwealth that should stand the wear and tear of a hundred ages." -- Henry Ruffner, President of Washington College (1836-1848). Ruffner's "Early History of Washington College" recounts the settling and development of the Valley of Virginia. An excerpt from "Early History" was printed in Henry Howe, "Historical Collections of Virginia" (1852), which fortunately is more available than the original. Reproduced here are Howe's introduction and the engaging Ruffner excerpt. |
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| Remains near bridge site may be old fort [18 c French fort in Vermont] |
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· 03/24/2010 6:30:48 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · 275+ views · · Press Republican · · March 23, 2010 · · Lohr McKinstry · |
Part of a stone foundation discovered next to one of the old Champlain Bridge pillars could be from a small French fort built in 1731. The foundation is about a foot and a half from the side of a pillar on the Vermont shore, but archeologists don't know if it's from the fort or an early house. The Champlain Bridge closed Oct. 16, 2009, and was destroyed by controlled explosives Dec. 28. A new bridge is scheduled to be constructed nearby starting this spring... The foundation is about a foot below the surface of the ground and was discovered during... |
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| Navigation | |
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| Shipwreck may be oldest off North Carolina coast |
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· 03/24/2010 6:09:50 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · 530+ views · · Reflector · · Wednesday, March 24, 2010 · · Associated Press · |
Wooden pegs rather than iron spikes held this ship together, like other English ships at the time, Henry said. The wood appears to be live oak, an indicator it could have come from an early Virginia colony, he said. |
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| The Civil War | |
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| The American Minute: Rufus King, Anti-Slavery Efforts - Supreme Court Justices - Repubs |
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· 03/24/2010 3:22:34 AM PDT · · Posted by Freedom'sWorthIt · · 6 replies · 119+ views · · The American Minute · · March 24, 2010 · · William J Federer · |
American Minute for March 24th: William Jay, son of the First Supreme Court Chief Justice, helped found New York City's Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. His son, John Jay, was manager of New York Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story helped establish the illegality of the slave trade in the 1844 Amistad case. Salmon P. Chase, appointed Chief Justice by Lincoln, defended so many escaped slaves in his career he was nicknamed "Attorney-General of Fugitive Slaves." Cassius Marcellus Clay, diplomat to Russia for Lincoln and Grant, founded the anti-slavery journal True American in 1845 and helped... |
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| Civil War History Meets Twitter @Discovercivwar |
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· 03/23/2010 9:17:07 PM PDT · · Posted by stainlessbanner · · 19 replies · 317+ views · · Archives · · March 23, 2010 · |
Civil War History Meets Twitter @Discovercivwar Follow the National Archives' Upcoming Civil War Exhibit on Twitter Washington, DC -- You can now follow the National Archives' exhibition marking the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, Discovering the Civil War on Twitter [http://twitter.com/discovercivwar]. Followers can discover the Civil War for themselves through tweets highlighting the people and stories of the Civil War linking to images of items that will be featured in the exhibition such as letters, diaries, photos, maps, petitions, receipts, patents, amendments, and proclamations. @discovercivwar will also alert the public to exciting, free programs related to the exhibition that will be held... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Faith in History: Islam in America's History - William J Federer |
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· 03/23/2010 4:02:34 AM PDT · · Posted by Freedom'sWorthIt · · 20 replies · 432+ views · · Faith in History · · March 23, 2010 · · William J Federer · |
William J Federer's great work: Faith in History - program that can be viewed on TCT TV - or online at TCT.TV website, Video on Demand, Click on the "Faith in History Icon... Today's "lesson" on the Christian Faith and its impact on our history - begins with a quotation from Obama to the effect that America owes much to Islam. William Federer goes through the History of how Islam has indeed impacted our nation...perhaps not in the context that Obama tried to suggest. |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| America's architectural heritage: Native American mortuary temples |
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· 03/24/2010 6:05:59 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · 156+ views · · Richard Thornton · · Wednesday, March 24, 2010 · · Architecture & Design Examiner · |
Archaeologists believe that many Native American cultures were obsessed with death and the hereafter. The most obvious evidence is the abundance of burial mounds containing human remains with grave openings. However, certain cultures not only built burial mounds, but also earthen complexes contain burial mounds, geometric patterns and mounds, which did not contain burials. North of the Southern Highlands, these ceremonial complexes contain few or no houses. This means that people traveled to these sites from distant villages in order build, worship, trade and socialize. There is evidence that some cultures even brought the remains of their love ones to... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Greenland Vikings 'had Celtic blood' |
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· 03/23/2010 8:28:05 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 55 replies · 712+ views · · cphpost.dk · · Friday, March 19, 2010 · · RC News · |
An analysis of DNA from a Viking gravesite near a 1000 year-old church in southern Greenland shows that those buried there had strong Celtic bloodlines... The analysis -- performed by Danish researchers on bones from skeletons found during excavations in south Greenland -- revealed that the settlers' Nordic blood was mixed with Celtic blood, probably originating from the British Isles. Danish archaeologists are currently conducting the first regional study of southern Greenland's original settlers, whose colonies date back to the year 985. The skeletons disinterred outside the old church also date back to just a few years after that period... |
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| Ancient glyphs and a Celtic connection theory |
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· 03/24/2010 1:55:24 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 14 replies · 543+ views · · Blue Mountains Courier Herald · · 16 Mar 2010 · · Erika Engel · |
A local man is out to change history. Or, more specifically, suggest that there might be some changes required in Canada's history books, and give us more reason to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Robert Burcher, a photographer and enquiring mind living in Slabtown, has recently finished the manuscript for a book that represents 16 years of research, a basement full of resources and several trips around Ontario and Ireland. His research was born in the Peterborough Petroglyphs. A vast expanse of rock carvings surrounded by conflicting interpretations and curious spectators. Burcher was most intrigued by what looked like the image... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| New ancestor? Scientists ponder DNA from Siberia |
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· 03/24/2010 12:16:23 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 19 replies · 391+ views · · Associated Press · · Mar 24, 2010 · · MALCOLM RITTER · |
NEW YORK -- In the latest use of DNA to investigate the story of humankind, scientists have decoded genetic material from an unidentified human ancestor that lived in Siberia and concluded it might be a new member of the human family tree. The DNA doesn't match modern humans or Neanderthals, two species that lived in that area around the same time -- 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. But "the human family tree has got a lot of branchings. It's entirely plausible there are a lot of branches out there we don't know about." |
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| DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman' |
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· 03/24/2010 1:38:44 PM PDT · · Posted by smokingfrog · · 33 replies · 823+ views · · BBC · · 3-24-10 · · Paul Rincon · |
Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave. The extinct "hominin" (human like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago. An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans. Details of the find, dubbed "X-woman", have been published in Nature journal. Ornaments were found in the same ground layer as the finger bone, including a bracelet. Professor Chris Stringer, human origins researcher at London's Natural History Museum, called... |
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| Possible new human ancestor found in Siberia |
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· 03/24/2010 4:05:58 PM PDT · · Posted by edcoil · · 33 replies · 675+ views · · reuters · · 3-24-10 · · edcoil · |
Genetic material pulled from a pinky finger bone found in a Siberian cave shows a new and unknown type of pre-human lived alongside modern humans and Neanderthals, scientists reported on Wednesday. |
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| Gene research reveals fourth human species |
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· 03/24/2010 7:40:24 PM PDT · · Posted by dangerdoc · · 22 replies · 561+ views · · Financial Times · · 3/24/10 · · Clive Cookson · |
A fourth type of hominid, besides Neanderthals, modern humans and the tiny "hobbit", was living as recently as 40,000 years ago, according to research published in the journal Nature. The discovery by Svante P‰‰bo and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, is based on DNA sequences from a finger bone fragment discovered in a Siberian cave. EDITOR'S CHOICE Science briefing: Biofuel breakthrough - Feb-26 Public losing faith in science - Feb-22 Science briefing: Tracking cancer changes - Feb-19 Scientists discover the secret of ageing - Feb-15 Genome of balding Arctic ancestor decoded - Feb-10... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Human ancestors walked comfortably upright 3.6 million years ago, new footprint study says [Laetoli] |
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· 03/23/2010 8:20:49 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · 408+ views · · Scientific American · · March 20, 2010 · · Katherine Harmon · |
A comparison of ancient and contemporary footprints reveals that our ancestors were strolling much like we do some 3.6 million years ago, a time when they were still quite comfortable spending time in trees, according to a study which will be published in the March 22 issue of the journal PLoS ONE... Although some researchers have argued that the 4.4 million-year-old ancient human Ardipithecus ramidus ("Ardi") described in October 2009 was adept at walking on her hind legs, many disagree... Likely left by Australopithecus afarensis, the same species as "Lucy," these prints show an upright gait, but it has remained... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Biology May Not Be So Complex After All, Physicist Finds |
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· 03/20/2010 10:10:30 PM PDT · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 18 replies · 542+ views · · ScienceDaily · · 3/19/10 · |
ScienceDaily (Mar. 19, 2010) -- Centuries ago, scientists began reducing the physics of the universe into a few, key laws described by a handful of parameters. Such simple descriptions have remained elusive for complex biological systems -- until now.Emory biophysicist Ilya Nemenman has identified parameters for several biochemical networks that distill the entire behavior of these systems into simple equivalent dynamics. The discovery may hold the potential to streamline the development of drugs and diagnostic tools, by simplifying the research models. |
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| Why everything you've been told about evolution is wrong (now this is weird) |
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· 03/19/2010 4:56:11 PM PDT · · Posted by chessplayer · · 578 replies · 4,079+ views · · Guardian (UK) · |
What if Darwin's theory of natural selection is inaccurate? What if the way you live now affects the life expectancy of your descendants? |
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| Diet and Cuisine | |
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| Onions Made Pre-Human Ancestors Cry Too, Study Suggests |
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· 03/24/2010 7:10:29 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · 211+ views · · LiveScience · · Friday, March 19, 2010 · · Staff · |
During the Cambrian Period, which lasted from 543 million to 490 million years ago, life forms included primitive marine organisms, such as echinoderms (a group that now includes sea stars and sea cucumbers), annelid worms and sponge-like organisms. Garrity and his colleagues reconstructed TRPA1's family tree back some 700 million years using a variety of bioinformatic methods (bioinformactics applies computer programs and statistic techniques to study biological data). For instance, the researchers compared the TRPA1 protein from different organisms to see how similar they were. They then used several computer programs to figure out how the proteins would relate to... |
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| What's the Frequency, Kenneth? | |
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| New Method Could Revolutionize Dating of Ancient Treasures |
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· 03/24/2010 5:54:06 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 26 replies · 351+ views · · Eurekalert! · · Tuesday, March 23, 2010 · · Michael Bernstein · |
In conventional dating methods, scientists remove a small sample from an object, such as a cloth or bone fragment. Then they treat the sample with a strong acid and a strong base and finally burn the sample in a small glass chamber to produce carbon dioxide gas to analyze its C-14 content. Rowe's new method, called "non-destructive carbon dating," eliminates sampling, the destructive acid-base washes, and burning. In the new method, scientists place an entire artifact in a special chamber with a plasma, an electrically charged gas similar to gases used in big-screen plasma television displays. The gas slowly and... |
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| India | |
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| New research cuts into origins of iron and steel in India |
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· 03/22/2010 9:55:08 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 8 replies · 318+ views · · University of Exeter · · Mar 22, 2010 · · Unknown · |
A small but intrepid team of Exeter staff and students have returned from a six-week archaeological research expedition to a remote region of rural Andhra Pradesh in India. The team, led by Dr Gill Juleff of the University of Exeter's Department of Archaeology, formed one half of a project to study the origins of high carbon steel-making in the southern Indian sub-continent. Funded by UK India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI), the 'Pioneering Metallurgy' project is a joint venture between Exeter and the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore. Setting out at 7.00 every morning from their base camp... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs |
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· 03/24/2010 6:51:18 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · 455+ views · · Biblical Archaeology Review · · Mar/Apr 2010 · · Orly Goldwasser · |
By the beginning of the Egyptian Middle Kingdom (a few years after 2000 B.C.E.), the pressure of immigrants on the eastern Delta was so strong that the Egyptian authorities built a series of forts at strategic points to "repel the Asiatics," as the story of Sinuhe tells us.1 More than a century later, however, Egyptian policy toward the Asiatics changed. Instead of trying to prevent them from coming in, the Egyptians cultivated close relations with strong Canaanite city-states on the Mediterranean coast and allowed select Asiatic populations to settle in the eastern Delta. The last of the great pharaohs of... |
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| Mesopotamia | |
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| After Years of War and Abuse, New Hope for Ancient Babylon |
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· 03/24/2010 6:22:24 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · 266+ views · · New York Times · · March 22, 2010 · · John Noble Wilford · |
A current study, known as the Future of Babylon project, documents the damage from water mainly associated with the Euphrates River and irrigation systems nearby. The ground is saturated just below the surface at sites of the Ishtar Gate and the long-gone Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders. Bricks are crumbling, temples collapsing. The Tower of Babel, long since reduced to rubble, is surrounded by standing water. Leaders of the international project, describing their findings in interviews and at a meeting this month in New York, said that any plan for reclaiming Babylon as a tourist attraction and a... |
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| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran | |
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| Parthian Bistun Will Be Excavated |
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· 03/24/2010 5:50:06 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 5 replies · 134+ views · · Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies · · Tuesday, March 23, 2010 · · unattributed · |
With regard to the discovery of the Parthian site, Daneshian explained: "The slope is mostly situated within the boundary of Bistun's World registered heritage site, near the [historical] hillside and the Achaemenid inscription, which is confirmed to be a settlement dating back to Arsacid dynasty. A current survey as well as the previous research and recovered artefacts points out to the importance of the settlement during the Arsacids dynastic period in this part of the country." The ancient site of Bistun has suffered extensively since 1979 and the rise of the clerical regime to power in Iran. Bistun like hundreds... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Happy Norooz! |
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· 03/20/2010 12:32:43 PM PDT · · Posted by sionnsar · · 70 replies · 905+ views · · FarsiNet · · 3/20/2010 · |
Nowruz 2569 (1389) will begin on... |
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| China | |
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| Ruins of 2,000-year-old city found in China |
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· 03/24/2010 6:08:19 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · 186+ views · · Times of India · · Wednesday, March 24, 2010 · · unattributed · |
BEIJING: Archaeologists in China have found the ruins of a 2,000-year-old city dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty, a report said Wednesday. The site, located near Fujiacun village in Fengcheng city in Jiangxi province, covers about 18,000 square metres and is surrounded by a moat, Xinhua news agency reported. About 30 metres of the wall surrounding the ancient city was still standing on its west and pieces of broken tiles were found scattered on the ground, it said. Villagers said they had seen stone implements at the site in the past, but none was found during a field trip... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Back in business: Pompeii snack bar re-opens... nearly 2000 years after it was destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius |
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· 03/20/2010 12:08:05 PM PDT · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 47 replies · 895+ views · · dailymail.co.uk · · March 20, 2010 · · Rhianna King · |
In AD79 it was Pompeii's most popular hang out, where locals would stop off to meet friends and partake in a snack of baked cheese smothered in honey. Now, nearly 2000 years after the Italian city was buried under ash and rubble by the devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius, its favourite snack bar has re-opened. For the first time the thermopolium, as it is called in Italy, will be open to tourists after having undergone and excavation and restoration process over the past few months. Tomorrow 300 VIPs selected at random will attend an advance opening of the snack bar... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Even Though Obama Doesn't, The Ancient Greeks Recognized Jerusalem as Jewish Capital |
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· 03/27/2010 8:17:53 PM PDT · · Posted by Shellybenoit · · 16 replies · 244+ views · · the Lid/Jerusalem Post · · 3/27/2010 · · The Lid · |
Monday Night Jews across the world will be sitting down with family and friends to begin the first Passover Seder. Passover is a holiday where we celebrate our freedom as a nation. at the beginning of each Seder we say the following words This year we are here, next year in the land of Israel; this year we are slaves, next year, we will be free men. You see, we don't begin the Seder with a prayer. We begin with a confident statement of fact: This year we are here; but next year we will be in Jerusalem. This year... |
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| Transcript of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's AIPAC speech |
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· 03/22/2010 11:00:59 PM PDT · · Posted by beagleone · · 135 replies · 2,262+ views · · Politico · · 23/22/2010 · · Binyamin Netanyahu · |
Members of the Obama Administration, Senators, Members of Congress, Ambassadors, Leaders of AIPAC, Ladies and Gentlemen, As the world faces monumental challenges, I know that Israel and America will face them together. We stand together because we are fired by the same ideals and inspired by the same dream the dream of achieving security, prosperity and peace. This dream seemed impossible to many Jews a century ago. This month, my father celebrated his one-hundredth birthday. When he was born, the Czars ruled Russia, the British Empire spanned the globe and the Ottomans ruled the Middle East. During his lifetime, all... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Jews Barred from Cairo's Maimonides Synagogue |
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· 03/28/2010 7:11:53 AM PDT · · Posted by SJackson · · 11 replies · 249+ views · · Arutz Sheva · · Hana Levi Julian · |
(IsraelNN.com) The Egyptian government has announced that it will not allow Jews to pray in Cairo's newly-restored Maimonides Synagogue, in retaliation for Israel's security response to Arab rioting on the Temple Mount. "The Al-Aqsa Mosque is part of the heritage of the Palestinian Arabs and Israel is not entitled to block them from it," said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. A Qatari newspaper quoted Hawass in a telephone interview late last week as saying the Maimonides Synagogue would be treated an an Egyptian antiquity, not a Jewish house of worship. Nor will he allow the... |
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| Climate | |
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| 'science's dirtiest secret: The "scientific method" of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation.' |
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· 03/21/2010 9:37:39 AM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 24 replies · 499+ views · · Wattsupwiththat.com · · March 20 , 2010 · · Anthony Watts · |
'science's dirtiest secret: The "scientific method" of testing hypotheses by statistical analysis stands on a flimsy foundation.' The quote in the headline is direct from this article in Science News for which I've posted an excerpt below. I found this article interesting for two reasons. 1- It challenges use of statistical methods that have come into question in climate science recently, such as Mann's tree ring proxy hockey stick and the Steig et al statistical assertion that Antarctica is warming. 2- It pulls no punches in pointing out an over-reliance on statistical methods can produce competing results from the same... |
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| Dinosaurs | |
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| New Dinosaur: "Exquisite" Raptor Found |
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· 03/20/2010 9:11:31 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 23 replies · 1,124+ views · · nationalgeographic · · March 19, 2010 · |
Like a zombie clawing its way out of the grave, a new dinosaur species was discovered when scientists spotted a hand bone protruding from a cliff in the Gobi desert of Inner Mongolia, paleontologists have announced. Called Linheraptor exquisitus, the new dinosaur is a raptor, a type of two-legged meat-eater, that lived during the late Cretaceous period in what is now northeastern China "We were looking at these very tall red sandstone walls that were all abraded by the wind, and I saw this claw sticking out of the side of the cliff," recalls Jonah Choiniere, a grad student at... |
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| Dinosaur Buried Alive By Collapsing Sand Dune [this didn't just happen] |
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· 03/24/2010 7:19:40 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 40 replies · 1,018+ views · · LiveScience · · March 23, 2010 · · Jeanna Bryner · |
A plant-eating dinosaur might have been swallowed up by a collapsing sand dune some 185 million years ago in what are now Utah's red rocks. The desert disaster likely plopped the dinosaur onto its head, where it remained until being discovered by a local historian and artist in 2004... in the Comb Ridge area near Bluff, Utah, when he spotted the bony fossil protruding from the multicolored cliffs of the Navajo Sandstone, which represents the remains of a huge sand dune desert as large as the modern-day Sahara Desert. As such, the dinosaur has been named Seitaad ruessi, derived from... |
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| First tyrannosaur fossil from Southern Hemisphere |
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· 03/25/2010 11:34:11 AM PDT · · Posted by cajuncow · · 14 replies · 252+ views · · yahoo news · · 3-25-10 · · Randolph E. Schmid, AP · |
WASHINGTON -- A foot-long piece of bone unearthed in Australia is the first evidence that ancestors of the mighty T. rex once lived in the Southern Hemisphere. The remains are from an animal much smaller than the famed predator, but add to the knowledge of how this type of dinosaur evolved. The discovery is reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science by a team of researchers led by Roger B. J. Benson of the department of earth science at England's University of Cambridge. |
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| Scientists unearth Australian T rex |
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· 03/27/2010 7:44:04 PM PDT · · Posted by myknowledge · · 5 replies · 174+ views · · Australian Broadcasting Corporation · · March 26, 2010 · · Dani Cooper · |
Australian scientists say they have discovered the first evidence that an ancestor of the mighty Tyrannosaurus rex once roamed across Australia. The finding, published today in the journal Science, fills a major gap in the evolutionary history of T rex and overturns the theory the giant predator was a purely northern hemisphere animal. It also puts a dampener on hopes of finding a unique Australian dinosaur, says Museum Victoria curator of vertebrate palaeontology Dr Tom Rich. The discovery is based on a pubic bone found about 20 years ago at Dinosaur Cove, 220 kilometres west of Melbourne in Victoria. It... |
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| British Isles | |
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| The antique chair that gives an eye-popping insight into Edward VII's debauched youth |
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· 03/22/2010 7:02:40 AM PDT · · Posted by C19fan · · 40 replies · 2,777+ views · · Daily Mail · · March 22, 2010 · · Eugene Costello · |
Among the bordellos of Victorian Paris, Le Chabanais was the most exquisite, and the most lavish. Over the years this "maison de tolerance' -- the word "brothel' was considered too tawdry -- saw visitors as illustrious as Humphrey Bogart, Mae West and Cary Grant. But in the 1880s, one of its principal clients was the future King Edward VII, then known to everyone as "Bertie', the playboy Prince of Wales. Each of the establishment's 30 rooms had its own theme, such as Moorish, Louis XIV and ancient Roman -- but Bertie's favourite was the Hindu room. |
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| Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Swine Flu Pandemic Reincarnates 1918 Virus |
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· 03/24/2010 5:42:49 PM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 40 replies · 684+ views · · ScienceNOW · · March 24, 2010 · · Jon Cohen · |
Enlarge Image Crystal ball. The 2009 pandemic virus has the same amino acids at the tip of its HA as the 1918 strain shown here bound to an antibody (red and yellow ribbons) taken from a survivor of the 1918 pandemic. Credit: R. Xu et al., Science (Advanced Online Edition) Researchers have found that the H1N1 swine influenza virus that last year caused the first human pandemic in 4 decades shares an important surface protein with the virus responsible for the 1918 flu, the deadliest in human history. This newfound similarity answers many mysteries about the 2009 pandemic, including... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Buy a Texas town! - The Grove, Tx - April 23, 24,25, 2010 |
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· 03/20/2010 1:25:52 PM PDT · · Posted by deport · · 36 replies · 931+ views · · Beaumont Enterprise · · 3-20-2010 · · The Bayou Blog · |
Next Month you can buy a Texas Town. He's tried. For two years, Moody Anderson has attempted to sell the Texas "ghost town," The Groves. Even had it up on eBay. There were no takers. Fickle bunch, those eBay folks. The Groves is a made up of five buildings, each containing hundreds of collector's items. We'll let Texas Escapes give a proper description: "This is a very well preserved 1860's museum town full of authentic, articles and artifacts from that era. There is also written documentation of The Grove's birth to its desertion in the 40's when TxDOT re-routed... |
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| end of digest #297 20100327 | |
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· Saturday, March 27, 2010 · 40 topics · 2481635 to 2475048 · 747 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 297th issue which is dated the 27th and is number 37 of volume, uh, six. This issue is actually going out on the 28th because the entire editorial staff was out of town. Lots of topics, fewer headers. |
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Ancient doorway to afterlife discovered in Egypt
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100329/wl_africa_afp/egyptarchaeology
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