Free Republic

5 guesses on Emperor Qin Shihuang's tomb Qin Shihuang holds a central place in Chinese history for being the first emperor who united the country. He is also well known for his part in the construction of the spectacular Great Wall and his splendid terracotta army. To ensure his rule in the afterlife, this emperor commanded more than 700,000 conscripts from all parts of the country to build him a grand mausoleum as luxurious as any of the palaces he had in mortal life. Legend says that numerous treasures were placed in the tomb. As time passed, no one knew...

Mysterious building discovered in emperor's tomb Last Updated(Beijing Time):2007-07-01 10:33 Chinese archaeologists said that after five years of research they have confirmed that there is a 30-meter-high building buried in the tomb of Qinshihuang, Chinese first emperor more than 2,000 years ago. The building, buried in the 51-meter-high, pyramid-like earth above the tomb's main body underground, has four surrounding stair-like walls and each wall with nine steps of platforms, said Duan Qingbo, a researcher with Shaanxi Institute of Archaeology. The whole building were buried under the earth, which made it difficult for researchers to get a complete picture of it,...

XIAN, China: The tomb of China's first emperor is potentially one of the most spectacular on Earth, but a heated debate is developing over whether to excavate it at all. Chinese archaeologists have expressed concern that they do not currently have the expertise to properly preserve what they find inside the tomb - located in China's central province of Shaanxi – but new technologies may be closing that gap. Qinshi Huang's enormous tomb complex is the home of Xian's famed terracotta warriors; 8,000 life-size figures that were discovered by accident in 1974. The tomb itself, though, has not yet been...

Pollen Reveals Terracotta Army Origins Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Pollen Found Inside Jan. 29, 2007 — China’s Terracotta Army has mystified scholars since the 8,099 clay warriors and horses were first discovered in Emperor Qin Shihuang’s mausoleum in 1974. The figures, meant to protect the emperor in the afterlife, were buried with him around 210-209 B.C. At least one mystery about the imposing faux army recently was solved. It is now known that the horses and warriors were constructed in different locations, based on analysis of pollen found in fragments of terracotta that were collected from the clay figures.Horses Made...

Archaeologists find terracotta figurines older than those buried with Chinese first emperor Chinese archaeologists have discovered two terracotta figurines dating back to about 2,500 years ago, older than the famous terracotta warriors buried with first Chinese emperor Qinshihuang. The rough-hewn, 10-centimeter tall statues might be the oldest terracotta figurines produced by the Qin State at the beginning of the Warring States Period (475 BC-221 BC), said some experts. The two figurines were found at the ruins of Yongcheng, an ancient Qin State capital, in northwest Shaanxi Province, according to local media reports. Qin State unified China in 221 BC. Qinshihuang,...

With its tales of buried treasure and the elixir of youth, the recent movie "Myth" has heightened interest in the mystical Mausoleum of Qinshihuang (259-210 BC). Starring Hong Kong actor Jackie Chan as an archaeologist, the film focuses on what could be hidden within the tomb, which was built more than 2,000 years ago... "It is the best choice to keep the ancient tomb untouched, because of the complex conditions inside," said Duan Qingbo, archaeologist and researcher in the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeology Institute. Duan, who is also the head of the archaeological team working on the ancient mausoleum, told China...

Tomb scan reveals buried treasure Thursday, October 20, 2005; Posted: 1:02 a.m. EDT (05:02 GMT) Some of the terra cotta soldier statues found around Qin's tomb. BEIJING, China (AP) -- A magnetic scan of the unopened tomb of China's first emperor has detected a large number of coins, suggesting Emperor Qin was buried with his state treasury, a news report said Thursday.

JAN 10, 2003 Five more chambers of first emperor's tomb found Rooms are even bigger than pits that hold his terracotta armyBEIJING - Archaeologists say they have found five more chambers in the sprawling tomb complex of China's legendary first emperor - rooms even bigger than the pits that hold his famed terracotta army. Qin Shihuang is credited with creating the first Chinese empire in 220 BC after conquering neighbouring kingdoms. His tomb near the city of Xi'an has not been opened, but the thousands of life-size clay soldiers unearthed in the 1970s are a major tourist attraction. Archaeologists...

Tomb of 1st emperor's grandmother unearthed www.chinaview.cn 2006-07-29 20:19:32 XI'AN, July 29 (Xinhua) -- After more than a year's excavation and research in a large tomb in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Chinese archaeologists have concluded that the tomb belonged to the grandmother of Qinshihuang, the country's first emperor.   Zhang Tian'en, an expert with the Shaanxi Provincial Archaeology Institute, told Xinhua on Saturday that the tomb was chronologically the closest to the mysterious mausoleum of Qinshihuang, and was probably built on the emperor's orders. "We are hoping that the excavation of his grandmother's tomb will help unravel the mystery about...

According to China.org.cn, the tomb complex covers an area measuring 173,325 square metres, stretching 550m in length and 310 meters in width, and is the second largest tomb to have ever been discovered in the country... Qin Shi Huang (260-210BC) was the first emperor to unify China and enact major economic and political reforms across the country. China had previously consisted of a multitude of warring states and kingdoms, each under the control of feudal overlords, leading to much instability... After the death of Qin Shi Huang's father, he took the throne at the age of 13. His mother took...

Explanation: One of the largest young craters on Mercury, 114 kilometer (71 mile) diameter Hokusai crater's bright rays are known to extend across much of the planet. But this mosaic of oblique views focuses on Hokusai close up, its sunlit central peaks, terraced crater walls, and frozen sea of impact melt on the crater's floor. The images were captured by the MESSENGER spacecraft. The first to orbit Mercury, since 2011 MESSENGER has conducted scientific explorations, including extensive imaging of the Solar System's innermost planet. Now running out of propellant and unable to counter orbital perturbations caused by the Sun's gravity,...

When NASA's Mariner 10 flew by Mercury three times in the mid-1970s, it spotted what Blewett described as "certain odd, bright patches" within the impact craters. The patches showed up again during MESSENGER's flybys of the planet. It wasn't until 2011, when MESSENGER entered orbit and began to capture higher-resolution images, that the bright areas were revealed as shallow, irregularly shaped depressions on the surface. Hollows are relatively small landforms — shallow features on the surface that stretch at most 0.6 miles (1 kilometer). This small size implies a relatively young age, as cratering would have eroded them away over...

Mercury reflects very little light but its surface is low in iron, which rules out the presence of iron nanoparticles, the most likely "darkening agent". First, researchers modelled how much carbon-rich material could have been dropped on Mercury by passing comets. Then they fired projectiles at a sugar-coated basalt rock to confirm the darkening effect of carbon. Their results, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, support the idea that Mercury was "painted black" by cometary dust over billions of years. The effect of being intermittently blasted with tiny, carbon-rich "micrometeorites", the team says, is more than enough to account for...

Energy companies are preparing to shut down nearly 16 gigawatts of power by the end of this year as the deadline for compliance with new federal environmental regulations looms. In total, some 85 coal-fired generating units at 36 locations are expected to close in the coming months in part because of Environmental Protection Agency regulations. The largest set of retirements is set for June, when electricity demand starts to peak as Americans turn on their air conditioners for the summer. Most of these retirements will come from coal-fired power plants in Appalachia. “We are currently showing nearly 300 GW of...

Explanation: The sprawling Caloris basin on Mercury is one of the solar system's largest impact basins, created during the early history of the solar system by the impact of a large asteroid-sized body. The multi-featured, fractured basin spans about 1,500 kilometers in this enhanced color mosaic based on image data from the Mercury-orbiting MESSENGER spacecraft. Mercury's youngest large impact basin, Caloris was subsequently filled in by lavas that appear orange in the mosaic. Craters made after the flooding have excavated material from beneath the surface lavas. Seen as contrasting blue hues, they likely offer a glimpse of the original basin...

Explanation: On another Valentine's Day 25 years ago, cruising four billion miles from the Sun, the Voyager 1 spacecraft looked back one last time to make this first ever Solar System family portrait. The complete portrait is a 60 frame mosaic made from a vantage point 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In it, Voyager's wide angle camera frames sweep through the inner Solar System at the left, linking up with gas giant Neptune, the Solar System's outermost planet, at the far right. Positions for Venus, Earth, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune are indicated by letters, while the Sun is...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE-AUGUST 27,2014 STATEMENT OF WILLIAM W. THOMPSON, Ph.D., REGARDING THE 2004 ARTICLE EXAMINING THE POSSIBILITY OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MMR VACCINE AND AUTISM My name is William Thompson. I am a Senior Scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where I have worked since 1998. I regret that my coauthors and I omitted statistically significant information in our 2004 article published in the journal Pediatrics. The omitted data suggested that African American males who received the MMR vaccine before age 36 months were at increased risk for autism. Decisions were made regarding which findings to report...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul is standing by his statement that most vaccinations should be "voluntary," telling CNBC that a parent's choice not to vaccinate a child is "an issue of freedom." In an interview with the network Monday, Paul said that vaccines are "a good thing" but that parents "should have some input" into whether or not their children must get them. And he gave credence to the idea - disputed by the majority of the scientific community - that vaccination can lead to mental disabilities. "I have heard of many tragic cases of walking, talking normal children who wound...

When the temperature dips below freezing, reliable electricity becomes more than a matter of convenience but a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, the reliability of our electric grid is at-risk due to EPA regulations that are shutting down America’s coal plants.Existing EPA regulations already have led to the scheduled shutdown of nearly 20 percent of the U.S. coal fleet. EPA’s newest carbon regulations being finalized this summer will lead to even more shutdowns. With coal responsible for generating nearly 40 percent of America’s electricity, these shutdowns will further strain our nation’s electricity grid and could leave many Americans in...

In their studies, the team analyzed the effects of what is called the ‘Kozai mechanism,’ which is related to the gravitational perturbation that a large body exerts on the orbit of another much smaller and further away object. They looked at how the highly eccentric comet 96P/Machholz1 is influenced by Jupiter (it will come near the orbit of Mercury in 2017, but it travels as much as 6 AU at aphelion) and it may “provide the key to explain the puzzling clustering of orbits around argument of perihelion close to 0° recently found for the population of ETNOs,” the team...