Free Republic

When the Republican Party takes over majority control of Congress in January, it will face a number of battles that must be fought with the Obama administration ranging from its amnesty intentions to the repeal of ObamaCare, but high among the battles is the need to rein in the metastasizing power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

...The analyses revealed that the glass originate from the same glass workshops in Egypt that supplied the glass that the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun took with him to his grave in 1323 BC... Globalisation in the Bronze Age Twenty-three glass beads from Denmark were analysed using plasma-spectrometry. Without destroying the fragile beads, this technique makes it possible to compare the chemical composition of trace elements in the beads with reference material from Amarna in Egypt and Nippur in Mesopotamia, about 50 km south east of Baghdad in Iraq. The comparison showed that the chemical composition of the two sets of trace...

Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology, University of Warsaw discovered evidence of destruction and capture of the ancient city of Metsamor, one of the most famous archaeological sites in the vicinity of Yerevan. "In the entire area of research we found layers of burning and ash. The city was probably captured by the army of Argishti I, the ruler of Urartu," told PAP Krzysztof Jakubiak, head of the project. Argishti I was the king of Urartu, the biblical Kingdom of Ararat in the Armenian Highlands. During his reign, the boundaries of the state expanded to the Caucasus, the area of...

A study of a rock engraving discovered within Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar finds that the cross-hatched impression was likely created by Neanderthals and excluding the possibility of an unintentional or utilitarian origin, would represent Neanderthals' capacity for abstract expression. Previously-discovered cave art has been exclusively attributed to modern humans, who arrived in Western Europe around 40,000 years ago. In July 2012, researchers discovered the abstract pattern engraved in the rock of Gorham's Cave which is located on the southeast face of the Rock of Gibraltar. The cross-hatched pattern was overlain by undisturbed sediment in which Neanderthal artefacts had previously been...

Members of the Arad Rescue Unit, undergoing early morning routine training, noticed suspicious activity in the northern cliff of Nahal Ze'elim, in the region of the Leopard's Ascent (Judean Desert). After alerting the authorities a group of antiquity thieves searching for Dead Sea scrolls and other potentially valuable artefacts, were caught red-handed. The "The Cave of the Skulls", which is located in the side of a cliff, can only be reached on foot via a narrow goat path on top of rock fall, that passes upright bedrock walls and is extremely precarious. The robbers, who had used climbing gear to...

EPA’s proposed guidelines for carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions from existing stationary sources are fatally flawed. The rule violates the language of the Clean Air Act; it arbitrarily and capriciously imposes emission reduction goals with no analysis from EPA on the actual warming impacts; it is not supported by the American people nor Congress; it will drive up electricity prices; and it will threaten the stability of the electricity grid. EPA fails to note that in exchange for higher electricity rates, the benefit of this rule is that the world is expected to be 0.018 degrees Celsius cooler than otherwise by 2100....

Like most moms, Mek needs a break. The mother of the four fast-growing Malayan tiger cubs at Fresno Chaffee Zoo has frayed nerves and needs some space. “You can tell Mek has had it,” says Lyn Myers, assistant curator for mammals at the zoo. “It’s like the end of summer, when kids have been home all the time, and mom wants school to come. They’re ready for them to go.” Born Jan. 5 at the zoo, the cubs are now 11 months old. They are in good health and are receiving training from zoo officials to become more independent. They...

The world's largest capacity container ship has set off on its maiden voyage. Measuring 400 m (1,312 ft) in length and 58.6 m (192 ft) wide – or the size of four soccer fields for those more familiar with that alternative unit of measurement – the CSCL Globe can carry 19,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) shipping containers.

The parent Rosetta spacecraft is working well in orbit and still transmitting images of the comet while Philae hibernates in a shady spot below. This latest image here shows a clear view of where the European Space Agency thinks the lander arrived — somewhere in the rim of that shadowy crater you see up front.

Scientists have calculated that 2014 UR116 asteroid will fly in dangerous proximity to Earth every three years. If it collides with the planet the energy of the explosion could be a thousand times greater than the impact of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. Vladimir Lipunov, a leading scientist on the team which discovered the asteroid this October, says the scientists now know its orbit and its period which is 3 years, but they cannot say precisely when the asteroid will approach the Earth. “We should track it constantly. Because if we have a single mistake, there will be a catastrophe. The consequences...

Explanation: How far out will humanity explore? If this video's fusion of real space imagery and fictional space visualizations is on the right track, then at least the Solar System. Some of the video's wondrous sequences depict future humans drifting through the rings of Saturn, exploring Jupiter from a nearby spacecraft, and jumping off a high cliff in the low gravity of a moon of Uranus. Although no one can know the future, wandering and exploring beyond boundaries -- both physical and intellectual -- is part of the human spirit and has frequently served humanity well in the past.

Scientists from the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York have created a “supermouse.” The new creation was designed by implanting human brain cells in a normal mouse. Why would a group of researchers venture into the realm of something that seems like a scene straight out of The Planet of the Apes? Researchers are hoping to better understand human brain diseases by studying them in living mouse brains. The hybrid brains retain a mouse’s own neurons, which constitute about half of their brain cells. But almost all of their glial cells, which support the neurons, are human.

The Earth is presently in an interglacial period—a period between ice ages. Since the end of the last ice age, Earth’s surface temperatures have been above the temperature needed to maintain ice sheets and glaciers, which covered much of the land masses at mid-to-high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere. As a result, those ice sheets and glaciers have been melting for tens of thousands of years and sea levels have risen…and will continue to rise until the start of the next ice age.Many of us are old enough to remember the scare stories from the 1970s, a time when climate...

The headlines are burning around the nation: 2014 was the hottest ever spring! Except it wasn’t. The UAH satellite coverage sees all of Australia, day and night, and are not affected by urban heat, airport tarmacs, “gaps in the stations”, or inexplicable adjustments.When will the Bureau of Meteorology discover satellites? How many years will it take to train the ABC journalists to ask the BOM if satellite measurements agree or disagree with their highly adjusted, altered, deleted, and homogenised ground stations?I used exactly no tax dollars to email John Christy of UAH, get the latest data, and graph it to...

Explanation: Northern Lights, aurora borealis, haunted skies over the island of Kvaløya, near Tromsø Norway on 2009 December 13. This 30 second long exposure records their shimmering glow gently lighting the wintery coastal scene. A study in contrasts, it also captures the sudden flash of a fireball meteor from the excellent Geminid meteor shower in 2009 December. Streaking past familiar stars in the handle of the Big Dipper, the trail points back toward the constellation Gemini, off the top of the view. Both aurora and meteors occur in Earth's upper atmosphere at altitudes of 100 kilometers or so, but aurora...

...for tens of thousands of years, the Khoisan's ancestors were members of "the largest population" on the planet, according to a new study. The Khoisan have long stood apart from other groups within Africa. They look distinct, speak in "click" languages, and have also maintained the greatest genetic diversity known among human populations. Usually, big populations harbor the most diversity. But census counts show that the 100,000 Khoisan speakers in Africa today are far outnumbered by other groups, such as the 45 million Bantu speakers and their 180 million descendants who now speak Swahili and other languages. Researchers have thought...

Researchers have converted 40 percent of sunlight hitting a solar cell into electricity, which is the highest efficiency ever reported. The achievement was made using focused sunlight, and could have implications in photovoltaic power, the University of New South Wales reported. "This is the highest efficiency ever reported for sunlight conversion into electricity," said UNSW Scientia Professor and Director of the Advanced Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (ACAP) Professor Martin Green. "We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry," added Mark Keevers, the UNSW solar scientist who managed...

A hoard of Roman and Pictish silver has been unearthed by archaeologists working in a field in Aberdeenshire. The find, which contains more than 100 pieces including coins and jewellery, has been hailed as the most northern of its kind in Europe. The discovery was made earlier this year by archaeologists from National Museums Scotland and the University of Aberdeen's Northern Picts project at an undisclosed location. It will now become the subject of a programme of research involving detailed analysis and cataloguing through the Glenmorangie Research Project - a three-year sponsorship of National Museums Scotland to support the study...

In June 2012 metal detectorists Reg Mead and Richard Miles uncovered a hoard of a staggering 70,000 late Iron Age and Roman coins. They were searching in Grouville in Jersey when they came across their incredible find that has since turned out to be the largest hoard ever found in the island. The Hoard The coins, which had fused into one solid mass, were found using a deep-scanning metal detector. They were searching the area after Reg and Richard had uncovered a smaller hoard of 120 coins the previous year. As soon as they realised the size of their find,...