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Four images from New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with color data from the Ralph instrument to create this sharper global view of Pluto. (The lower right edge of Pluto in this view currently lacks high-resolution color coverage.) The images, taken when the spacecraft was 280,000 miles (450,000 kilometers) away from Pluto, show features as small as 1.4 miles (2.2 kilometers). That’s twice the resolution of the single-image view captured on July 13 and revealed at the approximate time of New Horizons’ July 14 closest approach. Image Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

"Cui bono?" Who benefits? It was the question ancient Romans asked when hoping to cut through a fog of possible causes for a problem. As of this morning, U.S. Marines were evacuating Sanaa, the capital of Yemen. We've seen this movie before: the bonfires of documents, the hammer blows to equipment, the disabling of weapons, the rush to the helicopters. Think Saigon 1973 or Tehran 1979. Only five months ago, President Obama touted his policy toward Yemen as a success: "This strategy of taking out terrorists who threaten us, while supporting partners on the front lines, is one that we...

I was the first writer to cover the Web for a popular audience, and it did prove popular. I mean, it must have had hundreds of thousands of users in 1993! Today, Facebook alone has over a billion users. What's Hot on ZDNet Apple releases OS X Yosemite for Mac for free; iWork updated iOS 8.1 available October 20 for iPhones, iPads Apple Pay ready for lift-off and Google 'trying to get it right' Microsoft to 'Connect' with developers at November event in New York You see the problem was that it was really, really hard to use the Web...

1,700 year old Footprints of the Builders of the Lod Mosaic Exposed Press Release Wednesday, October 14, 2009 www.antiquities.org.il/about_eng.asp?Modul_id=14 The Footprints of the Builders of the Lod Mosaic were Exposed While removing the mosaic from the ground, Israel Antiquities Authority conservators were surprised to discover 1,700 year old foot and sandal prints beneath it Head of the Israel Antiquities Authority Art Conservation Branch, "It's exciting. This is the first time I have ever encountered personal evidence such as this under a mosaic". Step by step, piece by piece, the conservation experts of the Israel Antiquities Authority detached the Lod mosaic...

A 500-square-meter mosaic depicting an intricate design of flamingos, peacocks, ducks and other animals that adorned the floor of a fifth-century C.E. villa, was unearthed recently on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean near Caesarea. Parts of the floor were first discovered in the 1950s by archaeologist Shmuel Yeivin. However, it was not fully excavated at the time due to budgetary constraints. This time, after an initial week-long excavation by Dr. Yosef Porat and Peter Gendelman of the Israel Antiquities Authority, the authority refused to continue the dig, citing a lack of funds. The Caesarea Development Corporation has agreed to pay...

One of the oldest surviving complete Roman mosaics dating from 1,700 years ago, a spectacular discovery made in Lod in Israel, will go on show at Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, UK... from 5 June – 2 November 2014. Measuring eight metres long and four metres wide, and in exceptional condition, the Lod mosaic depicts a paradise of birds, animals, shells and fishes, including one of the earliest images of a rhinoceros and a giraffe, richly decorated with geometric patterns and set in lush landscapes.Ancient city of LyddaThe mosaic was accidentally discovered in 1996, during highway construction work in the Israeli...

The surprising news that Mozilla would start placing a limited number of ads on Firefox's new tabs page, Directory Tiles, still has some users annoyed. Mitchell Baker, chair of the Mozilla Foundation explained and defended the Foundation's new ad program, but many supporters remain unconvinced.Mitchell Baker, the chair of the Mozilla Foundation, explained and defended the new ads in the Firefox Web browserAccording to Baker, previous attempts to add advertisement content to Firefox had been rejected by the Firefox user community. Baker described these as "features, bookmarks, tabs, and other irritants added to the product to generate revenue. We’d seen...

Archaeologists have uncovered an "extraordinary" mosaic that would've been used as the floor of a public building during the Byzantine Period in what is today Israel, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced.

An ancient Tiberias synagogue was extensively vandalized overnight Tuesday, causing irreversible damage and potentially necessitating millions of dollars in rehabilitation costs. Police opened an investigation, and officials said they suspected ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremists who oppose archaeological excavations of ancient tombs were to blame. "The damage is widespread… Some of the damage is irreversible," said Shaul Goldstein, executive director of the Nature and Parks Authority. The Hammat Tiberias site, which also serves as an archaeological park, boasts 1,600-year-old mosaics. The site's two synagogues date from 286 and 337 CE, when Tiberias was the seat of the Sanhedrin rabbinical court. Among the...

From the time of Alexander the Great in the fourth century B.C.E., Jews lived in a world in which Greek culture carried a certain prestige and offered a route to political influence, first within the Hellenistic kingdoms that succeeded Alexander in the third to first centuries B.C.E., and thereafter within the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. During this period -- when Alexander's empire was divided between the Seleucids and the Ptolemies, and later when the Romans dominated both the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East -- Greek was the language of government and administration. Native...

Tiberias dig unearths very rare marble floor By Eli Ashkenazi A marble floor dating from the first century CE was unearthed during this season's excavations of ancient Tiberias. According to archaeologist Professor Yizhar Hirschfeld, director of the three-week dig that ended yesterday, the floor is apparently a remnant of a pavement in the palace of Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great, who ruled the Galilee from 4 BCE to 38 CE.

Legislation to ban sex-selective abortions failed to pass today despite it being supported by the majority of the House. The final vote was 246-168. The reason it failed was that this particular proposal required a two-thirds majority to pass; therefore the bill fell 30 votes short. This is just one more sign of how morally bankrupt some in this nation have become. There are many of us out here who are as disgusted by the wickedness that permeates every fiber of the Democrat Party. However, just like in Nazi Germany and other moments of darkness in world history - enough...

American Mosaic: Last Best Hope on Earth or a thousand Years of Darkness. The verdict will soon be decided. (CAST: Starring Ronald Reagan, Billy Graham, Chuck Colson, Occupy Wall Street degenerates, Whitney Houston and a bunch of militant homosexuals). Video montage...

ENCINITAS, Calif.- Officials in a California city said they are researching a way to remove a stained-glass mosaic of a surfing Madonna without damaging the piece. The Encinitas City Council unanimously agreed the unauthorized mosaic, installed by a group of artists under a train bridge on Encinitas Boulevard just before Easter, must come down, and they voted to allot $2,000 for an arts conservation agency to investigate ways to remove the art without damaging it, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Thursday. The mosaic depicts Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Catholic icon of the Virgin Mary, riding a surfboard alongside the...

The internet of the future is likely to look very different from the distinct pages and sites we visit today – that was the message as Microsoft launched the latest version of their much-maligned Internet Explorer web browser. And while every major manufacturer always claims that theirs is a revolutionary product, the company that remains best known for Windows and Office might just be on the right track this time. Headlines around the world greeted IE9 as Microsoft’s most ambitious yet, while others called it revolutionary. Respected British website Techradar.com went so far as to call it “ie-mazing”. Almost since...

From the opening verses of Mosaic, it's clear that Ricky Skaggs is fine-tuning his music, shifting his sound slightly. Skaggs is singing about his Christian faith in strong yet delicate tones. But the tunes aren't the rigorous bluegrass ones we've come to expect. Instead, he's trying out variations on pop melodies, and he frequently sets his mandolin aside so that his plaintive declarations can be heard with greater starkness. In "My Cup Runneth Over," for example, it's Peter Frampton who provides the guitar hook.

While they may not have been the markings of a pair of Naot sandals, Israel Antiquities Authority conservators discovered footprints over 1,700 years-old, under the Lod Mosaic and at least one print resembling a modern sandal. Head of the Israel Antiquities AuthorityArt Conservation Branch Jacques Neguer said that when removing a section of a mosaic it is customary to clean its bedding, and study the material from which it is made and the construction stages and during that process, they found the footprints under the mosaic. "We look for drawings and sketches that the artists made in the plaster and...

The ancient footprints of the artisans who built a stunning 1,700-year-old mosaic floor in Lod were discovered recently, when conservators from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) were in the process of detaching the huge work of art from the ground. As the conservation experts worked on the plaster bedding to be done before detaching the mosaic, they were surprised to notice there were ancient foot and sandal prints beneath it. Clearly, the builders that had worked on the floor sometimes wore their sandals, and sometimes worked in their bare feet...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30, 2007 – The general who oversees training for Iraq’s security forces called the country a “mosaic,” and said each of Iraq’s regions poses unique challenges to security efforts. “I think every one of the provinces could be rated as having places that are pretty difficult fights,” Army Lt. Gen. James M. Dubik, commander of Multinational Security Transition Command Iraq, told military analysts during a conference call. “The country is not a one-size-fits-all, a one-description-fits-all. It’s much more a mosaic.” Dubik dismissed “blanket assessments” that predict how long it will take Iraq’s entire security force to function independently...

Three weeks ago, Israeli police found a mosaic floor in an Arab car. The Antiquities Authority has confirmed that the floor be belongs to a previously undiscovered synagogue in the Ramallah area. Researchers from the Israeli Antiquities Authority believe that the mosaic formed part of an ancient synagogue floor because it contained depictions of Jewish symbols, such as the base of a menorah (a seven branched candelabrum), a lulav (palm branch), and dates. Another, no less interesting feature of the mosaic, are the words “Shalom (peace) on Israel” which are inscribed on it. At first, researchers thought the thieves had...