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WASHINGTON, May 8, 2006 – Afghan National Police found an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan's Khowst province May 6, and coalition forces discovered a weapons cache and detained terror suspects in Kunar province the same day, military officials reported. The police discovered the IED in the middle of a main road in the Matun Valley near Paturri Village. The Afghan police secured the site, and a coalition explosive ordnance disposal team responded to the scene to secure the bomb. The team rendered the device harmless and destroyed it in place. In other news, a coalition patrol discovered a weapons cache...

EL PERU WAKA, Guatemala (Reuters) - Archeologists outsmarted tomb raiders to unearth a major Maya Indian royal burial site in the Guatemalan jungle, discovering jade jewelry and a jaguar pelt from more than 1,500 years ago. The tomb, found by archeologist Hector Escobedo last week, contains a king of the El Peru Waka city, now in ruins and covered in thick rainforest teeming with spider monkeys. He may have been the dynastic founder of the city, on major Mayan trade routes that could have stretched from the city of Tikal in Guatemala up through Mexico. "If this is indeed the...

Anything Into Oil Turkey guts, junked car parts, and even raw sewage go in one end of this plant, and black gold comes out the other endBy Brad Lemley Photography by Dean Kaufman DISCOVER Vol. 27 No. 04 | April 2006 The thermal conversion plant turns turkey offal into low-sulfur oil that is carted off by three tanker trucks daily. The smell is a mélange of midsummer corpse with fried-liver overtones and a distinct fecal note. It comes from the worst stuff in the world—turkey slaughterhouse waste. Rotting heads, gnarled feet, slimy intestines, and lungs swollen with putrid gases...

WASHINGTON, March 26, 2006 – U.S. soldiers discovered four weapons caches in separate operations throughout Iraq March 24 through today, military officials in Iraq reported. Soldiers from Multinational Division Baghdad's 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, discovered a large weapons cache while conducting a search today. The cache contained mortar rounds and fuses. Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, found a weapons cache March 25 while conducting a patrol southeast of Iskandariyah. The cache consisted of hand grenades, grenade fuses, non-electric blasting caps, a partial timer, 122 mm artillery rounds, accelerant rods,...

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, captured two terrorists in Abu Ghraib Feb. 26. Soldiers from the battalion’s Company B were conducting a routine inspection of vehicles in western Abu Ghraib. Prompted by his previous experiences in Iraq, 1st Lt. Scott Treadwell, Co. B, ordered his Soldiers to search a suspicious vehicle. Treadwell’s men discovered two known murderers of Iraqi civilians. The two men were carrying rifles and contracts for the murder of other Iraqis. A day prior, Soldiers from the battalion’s Co. C found a large weapon...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21, 2006 – An improvised explosive device killed 21 Iraqi civilians today in Baghdad, and two Iraqis were killed and 11 were wounded in separate attacks, military officials in Iraq reported. Terrorists detonated the IED at 5:30 p.m. in Abu Dshair in the Doura district of Baghdad. Another 25 Iraqis were wounded in the attack. Iraqi police and soldiers from Multinational Division Baghdad responded to the scene of the attack. Elsewhere, two Iraqi Public Order Brigade officers were killed and two were wounded today when a terrorist detonated a roadside bomb southeast of Baghdad. One Iraqi civilian was...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2006 – Iraqi and U.S. forces conducted raids on two targets in Iraq's Diyala province and a raid west of Baghdad that netted a total of 106 individuals and a weapons cache, Multinational Force Iraq officials said. The 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 5th Iraqi Army Division, advised by U.S. Army Special Forces soldiers, conducted assaults on two targets Feb. 12 in Diyala. The troops detained 102 persons of interest - 25 were on the Iraqi security forces "most wanted" list. They also killed two insurgents and discovered a large weapons cache. The combined Iraqi and U.S. forces...

A newfound type of rotating stars played peek-a-boo with astronomers, appearing and disappearing a few times each day. The stars seem to act like faulty cosmic lighthouses, spinning and emitting brief and bright flashes of radio waves that are among the brightest objects in the sky, then disappearing from the heavens entirely. The discovery is detailed in the Feb. 16 issue of the journal Nature. An international team of researchers spotted the new stars, called rotating radio transients, or RRATs, using the Parkes radio telescope in Australia. They were searching for radio pulsars—rotating neutron stars emitting radiation—at the time, but...

JAKARTA, Indonesia - A team of scientists exploring an isolated jungle in one of Indonesia's most remote provinces said they discovered dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants — as well as large mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere. The team also found wildlife that were remarkably unafraid of humans during their rapid assessment survey of the Foja Mountains, which has more than two million acres of old growth tropical forest, Bruce Beehler, a co-leader of the monthlong trip, said in announcing the discoveries on Tuesday. Two Long-Beaked Echidnas, a primitive egg-laying mammal, simply allowed scientists to pick...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Scientists have discovered an undersea deposit of frozen methane just off the Southern California coast, but whether it can be harnessed as a potential energy source is unknown. The size of the deposit is unknown but the researchers believe it to be substantial. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in tapping methane hydrates, ice-like crystals that form under seabeds and Arctic permafrost. Scientists estimate that the methane trapped in previously known frozen reservoirs around the globe could power the world for centuries. But finding the technology to mine such deposits has proved elusive....

Of course the Chinese didn't discover America. But then nor did Columbus A map supporting claims that the admiral Zheng He reached the New World in the early 15th century is plainly a hoax Simon Jenkins Friday January 20, 2006 The Guardian (UK) We all know that a lie goes halfway round the world while truth is putting on its boots. But what if the lie goes the whole way? What if it claims to circumnavigate the globe? Last week came purported evidence that the Chinese admiral Zheng He sailed his great fleet of junks round the world a century...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Scientists in Ireland may have found the country's most fertile male, with more than 3 million men worldwide among his offspring. The scientists, from Trinity College Dublin, have discovered that as many as one in twelve Irish men could be descended from Niall of the Nine Hostages, a 5th-century warlord who was head of the most powerful dynasty in ancient Ireland. His genetic legacy is almost as impressive as Genghis Khan, the Mongol emperor who conquered most of Asia in the 13th century and has nearly 16 million descendants, said Dan Bradley, who supervised the research. "It's...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 11, 2006 – Coalition forces found dead bodies, killed several insurgents and detained one other, and discovered numerous weapons caches throughout Iraq this week, U.S. military officials in Iraq reported today. Coalition forces found seven murdered bodies at the Rustimiyah sewage plant today. All the bodies showed evidence of torture, officials said. The bodies were taken to the local police station. Officials provided no other details. While conducting an air-insertion mission in Baghdad today, Task Force Ironhorse soldiers killed several insurgents, detained one and discovered a significant weapons cache. Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry Regiment, received small-arms...

Source: University of Cincinnati Date: 2006-01-06 Researchers Discover Greek Temple In Albania Dating Back To 6th Century B.C. Researchers from the University of Cincinnati’s Classics faculty are preparing to make their first public presentation of details surrounding their find of one of the earliest Greek temples in the Adriatic region north of Greece. A fragment of a tablet recovered from the Albanian site. (Image courtesy of University of Cincinnati) The UC researchers, along with colleagues from the International Centre for Albanian Archaeology and the Institute of Archaeology, Tirana, will be presenting on their new work on Friday, Jan. 6, 2006,...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 23, 2005 – Iraqi army troops discovered several weapons caches and took suspected terrorists into custody Dec. 22 as they continue to take on more responsibility for their nation's security, military officials reported today. Troops from the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 1st Iraqi Intervention Force, discovered a cache of 12 anti-tank mines, two 82 mm mortar rounds and one 120 mm mortar round, and another containing two 130 mm artillery rounds, an 82 mm mortar round, three rocket-propelled grenade boosters, two anti-tank mines and two 120 mm mortar rounds, officials said. An explosives team destroyed both caches in...

SCIENTISTS DISCOVER ANCIENT MOUND [December 03, 2005, 19:00:35] As a result of the archaeological dig in the territory of Agstafa region, through which the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil and South Caucasus gas pipelines pass, scientists of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences have discovered ancient mound dating back to the 4th millennium B.C. The finding considered to be the most ancient one of this kind in the Southern Caucasus testifies that the tradition of manufacturing burial stones first began in Azerbaijan, and later spread to the Northern Caucasus.

LOS ANGELES – Astronomers peering through ground- and space-based telescopes have discovered what they believe is the birth of the smallest known solar system. Scientists found a tiny brown dwarf – or failed star – less than one hundredth the mass of the sun surrounded by what appears to be a disk of dust and gas. The brown dwarf – located 500 light years away in the constellation Chamaeleon – appears to be undergoing a planet-forming process that could one day yield a miniature solar system, said Kevin Luhman of Penn State University, who led the discovery. It's long believed...

Archaeologists uncovering the horse skeletons found recently during a salvage dig beneath the Armenian monastery in Jaffa. (Nir Kafri) Last update - 02:21 23/11/2005 Archaeologists surprised to discover ancient horse skeletons in Jaffa dig By Yuval Azoulay Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists conducting a salvage dig in the Armenian monastery in Jaffa expected to find artifacts connected to the ancient fortifications of the city. However, a few days ago they were surprised to discover, some 60 centimeters below the monastery floor, no fewer than 10 horse skeletons. Excavation directors Amit Re'em and Martin Peilstoker said yesterday the horses may have...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 9, 2005 – Coalition and Iraqi forces have seized or destroyed several weapons caches around Iraq since Nov. 5, officials announced. Coalition air forces conducted an air strike against an al Qaeda weapons cache in the village of Bu Hardan, near Qaim, early today. Multiple intelligence sources and tips from local citizens indicated a terrorist cell was firing on coalition forces in the area. Coalition forces tracked the cell to a storage building in the village into which mortars and other small weapons were seen being moved. This weapons cache was directly linked to mortar attacks on coalition...

China Exclusive: Chinese archaeologists discover world earliest millets (Xinhua) Updated: 2005-09-02 16:14 Chinese archaeologists have recently found the world earliest millets, dated back to about 8,000 years ago, on the grassland in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. A large number of carbonized millets have been discovered by Chinese archaeologists at the Xinglonggou relics site in Chifeng City. The discovery has changed the traditional opinion that millet, the staple food in ancient north China, originated in the Yellow River valley, Zhao Zhijun, a researcher with the Archaeology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Xinhua on Friday. Carbon-14...