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Bones found near Indian BeachBuilders unearth remains, but excavation of site is unlikely By LATISHA R. GRAY 3-10-2007 latisha.gray@heraldtribune.comSTAFF PHOTO / DAN WAGNER Construction was halted on this waterfront property in Sarasota after human remains were found. SARASOTA -- The remains of what appears to be an American Indian have at least one local archeologist both excited and dismayed. Palmetto archaeologist Bill Burger said the rib, femur and vertebrae unearthed this month by construction workers building a luxury home along the bayfront could offer clues of a tribe from long gone. But it is impossible to determine just what else...

The skeleton of the fossilised, 3.2 million-year-old human ancestor known as Lucy, will go on display in the US, Ethiopian officials say. After four years of negotiations with the Houston Museum of Natural Science in Texas, Ethiopia agreed to lend the bones for scientific study until 2013. It is hoped Lucy's 11-leg tour will boost tourism and increase Ethiopia's profile as the "home of all humanity". She will leave her country of origin - and the origin of mankind - in June. As well as Lucy, the travelling exhibition will also include about 190 other Ethiopian artefacts including humankind's earliest...

NEW YORK — Searchers found more bones believed to belong to Sept. 11 World Trade Center attack victims Sunday in manholes and utility areas that apparently were overlooked years ago. Deputy Mayor Ed Skyler, who is overseeing the recovery effort, also said search officials had identified 12 additional underground areas that will be examined in coming days. Utility and city officials have excavated about five underground areas, yielding more than 100 pieces of human remains, since construction workers discovered bones earlier in the week in a manhole excavated as part of work on a transit hub. The medical examiner's office...

NEW YORK — More than five years after the World Trade Center came crashing down, human remains keep cropping up near the site, angering family members who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack.

Ancient Bones Belonged to a Man -- Probably By Steve Chawkins, Times Staff Writer September 11, 2006 By the time you reach 13,000 or so, you'd figure that the people closest to you would know some fundamental personal details — like your sex. But consider the plight of the oldest person yet found in North America.All that remains of him — or is it her? — are a couple of thigh bones, which were discovered on Santa Rosa Island in 1959. At the time, scientists thought they belonged to a man of a certain age — perhaps 10,000. The bones...

Australian scientists are using stem cells to repair fractures in patients whose bones won't heal. The hope is it will save patients having to undergo many painful operations. Jamie Stevens, 21, fell off his motor bike nine months ago, fracturing his thigh bone. It didn't heal, leaving a five-centimetre gap. The usual treatment would be to graft a new bone from his hip. Instead, he was chosen as the first Australian patient to get an injection of specially treated stem cells. "The benefits outweigh the old procedure which takes a big chunk out of your hip," Jamie Stevens said. "It's...

Using a relatively new technology called RNA interference to turn off genes that regulate cell differentiation, University of Pittsburgh researchers have demonstrated they can increase the propensity of muscle-derived stem cells (MDSCs) to become bone-forming cells. Based on these results, the investigators believe that by turning off specific genetic factors they can control the capacity of MDSCs as a means of treating various musculoskeletal diseases and injuries. RNA interference is a simple yet powerful technique that uses short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) – small molecules that prevent a gene from being expressed – to turn off the production of specific proteins...

CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people traveling with invading Spanish forces in 1520. Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say. The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children traveling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king...

CALPULALPAN, Mexico (Reuters) - Skeletons found at an unearthed site in Mexico show Aztecs captured, ritually sacrificed and partially ate several hundred people travelling with invading Spanish forces in 1520. Skulls and bones from the Tecuaque archaeological site near Mexico City show about 550 victims had their hearts ripped out by Aztec priests in ritual offerings, and were dismembered or had their bones boiled or scraped clean, experts say. The findings support accounts of Aztecs capturing and killing a caravan of Spanish conquistadors and local men, women and children travelling with them in revenge for the murder of Cacamatzin, king...

In the last 10 years, millions of patients have taken a class of drugs that can prevent agonizing broken and deteriorating bones. The drugs once seemed perfectly safe and have transformed life for patients with cancer or osteoporosis. But recently there have been reports of a serious side effect: death of areas of bone in the jaw. Everyone agrees that the condition, osteonecrosis of the jaw, is an uncommon complication, but that its true incidence is not known. It is estimated that among the 500,000 American cancer patients who take the drugs because their disease is affecting their bones, 1...

Bones in togas puzzle Vatican archaeologists By Nick Pisa in Rome (Filed: 21/05/2006) Archaeologists exploring one of Rome's oldest catacombs are baffled by neat piles of more than 1,000 skeletons dressed in elegant togas. The macabre find emerged as teams of historians slowly picked their way through the complex network of underground burial chambers, which stretch for miles under the city. They say the tomb, which has been dated to the first century AD, is the first known example of a "mass burial". The archaeologists are unable to explain why so many apparently upper-class Romans - who would normally have...

MADRID, Spain - Scientists said Friday they have confirmed that at least some of Christopher Columbus' remains were buried inside a Spanish cathedral, a discovery that could help end a century-old debate over the explorer's final resting place. DNA samples from 500-year-old bone slivers could contradict the Dominican Republic's competing claim that the explorer was laid to rest in the New World, said Marcial Castro, a Seville-area historian and high school teacher who devised the study that began in 2002. However, some of Columbus' remains also could have been buried in the Dominican Republic, he said. The announcement came a...

HARTFORD, Conn. - A Yale University historian discovered a 1918 letter that raises anew questions about a secretive Yale student society and the remains of the American Indian leader Geronimo. The letter, written by a member of Skull and Bones to another member of the society, purports that some of the Indian leader's remains were spirited from his burial plot in Fort Sill, Okla., to a stone tomb in New Haven that serves as the club's headquarters. A portion of the letter and an accompanying story were posted Monday on the Yale Alumni Magazine's Web site. At one of the...

Old bones are telling new tales BY SANDI DOUGHTONMay 5, 2006 The Seattle Times ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Behind two locked doors at Central Washington University, what might be called Son of Kennewick Man sits inside a cardboard box. The faceless skull dates back 9,000 years - just 400 years younger than the superstar skeleton unearthed from the banks of the Columbia River. While Kennewick Man ignited a legal battle over the control of ancient bones, the skull at CWU has barely raised a ripple. "It just misses the mark in terms of people's interest," said CWU anthropology professor Steven Hackenberger....

The NRC reports that adults drinking 2 liters of water fluoridated at 4 mg/L (or 8 milligrams of fluoride) daily risk broken bones and joint pain. EPA employees reported this years ago; but were ignored.

A team of researchers has succeeded in engineering stem cells taken from tooth germ to quickly develop into liver or bone tissue, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's Research Institute (AIST) for Cell Engineering said. A joint team of scientists from the institute and Osaka University succeeded in repairing damaged liver and bones in rats using stem cells taken from wisdom tooth germ. The finding raises hopes of developing regenerative medicine using wisdom teeth germ taken from people during orthodontic treatments. Tooth germ disappears as a tooth is formed, but that of a wisdom tooth stays in...

WILKES-BARRE (PA)– Family members of two men allegedly gunned down by Hugo Selenski erupted in anger Wednesday after Selenski’s attorney handled the bones prosecutors say belonged to the slain men. The parents of Frank “Rudy” James and Adeiye “Redman” Keiler, the drug dealer suspects whom Hugo Selenski stands accused of killing, believe attorney Demetrius Fannick showed a lack of respect to their sons by dropping the bones onto the defense desk while questioning a witness about them. “How dare you throw our children’s bones,” said Keiler’s mother, Sharon Forrester, during an impromptu press conference during the lunch break. “How dare...

SEATTLE -- Kennewick Man was buried by other humans. That finding, which scientists have pondered for nearly 10 years, was finally confirmed Thursday at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists here. The scientists also have concluded the ancient skull appears different than those of Indian tribes who lived in the area. Scientists long had wondered whether Kennewick Man, whose 9,000-year-old skeleton was found 10 years ago in Columbia Park alongside the Columbia River, was naturally covered with silt or if others had laid him to rest. The answer is he was laid out on his back,...

Scientists plan to disclose their findings about Kennewick Man on Thursday in Seattle, nearly a decade after the discovery of the 9,000-year-old skeleton that attracted worldwide interest and sparked a lengthy legal fight. "Kennewick's story is finally going to get told," said Cleone Hawkinson, president of Friends of America's Past. Hawkinson has been working for years to ensure Kennewick Man's bones would be studied by the top scientists in the country. Kennewick Man's bones are significant to scientists because they are considered one of the most complete ancient skeletons ever found. Scientists have theorized he was about 45 years old...

The biggest study ever of calcium and vitamin D supplements for older women showed they offered only limited protection against broken bones, raising questions over what has been an article of faith among doctors and nutritionists. The supplements seemed to reduce the risk of broken hips in women over 60 and also helped those who took the supplements most regularly. But as to preventing bone fractures overall, vitamin D and calcium flunked in these healthy women. One of the researchers, Dr. Norman Lasser at New Jersey Medical School, said the study is "not as ringing an endorsement of calcium as...