Free Republic

New research has heated up the debate over whether dinosaurs were ectothermic (cold-blooded) or endothermic (warm-blooded like us). The topic is addressed in this week's Johns Hopkins News-Letter and a recent PLoS One paper. The prevailing view for decades was that dinosaurs were cold-blooded, as reptiles, fish and amphibians are today. Now support is leaning toward the warm-blooded dinosaur theory, which opens up a slew of intriguing questions: Did dinosaurs sweat? Were they able to live in very cold regions? Did they have to eat a lot to fuel their lifestyle? and more. Herman Pontzer at Washington University in St....

The first stage of a five-year (2009-2013) excavation project in Ancient Tegea, near Tripolis, has been completed by an international team of archaeologists led by the Norwegian Institute in Athens in Collaboration with the Greek culture ministry's 38th Ephoria for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and 25th Ephoria of Byzantine Antiquities. The area of excavation is a field located to the west of the theatre and the Basilica of Thyrsos, where magnetometer survey 2003-2004 documented the probable location of a major north-south street and a stoa bordering the agora... Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece, and it is also a...

The well-preserved remains of a Roman tower used by guards patrolling Chester’s City Walls has been discovered by archaeologists repairing a section which collapsed near the Eastgate Clock. Interval towers were placed regularly every 65m or so along the rear of the main fortress wall and acted as lookout points and as bases for roman artillery. The tower has been found beneath the foundation of the city wall... Restoration specialist Maysand is undertaking the work to repair the Walls section, joined by a team of specialists from Giffords, English Heritage, Chester Renaissance and Cheshire West and Chester Council... The webcam...

At a settlement in what is now southern Germany, the menu turned gruesome 7,000 years ago. Over a period of perhaps a few decades, hundreds of people were butchered and eaten before parts of their bodies were thrown into oval pits, a new study suggests. Cannibalism at the village, now called Herxheim, may have occurred during ceremonies in which people from near and far brought slaves, war prisoners or other dependents for ritual sacrifice, propose anthropologist Bruno Boulestin of the University of Bordeaux... A social and political crisis in central Europe at that time triggered various forms of violence, the...

[no excerpt, the miserable curs at AP, who digitized Sarah's entire book and published large chunks of it, claiming "fair use", don't like to be hoist on their own petard, whatever. The gist of the original AP story is, the Jews start all wars.]

<p>Obese Air Passenger In Economy Seat Has Picture Taken An image of an obese passenger squeezed into an economy airline seat has reopened a debate about how airlines deal with growing numbers of oversized passengers.</p> <p>The picture, posted on an aviation blog, was reportedly taken by a flight attendant to illustrate to airline managers the difficulty of dealing with passengers who cannot fit into seats. It is unclear if the man was aware his picture was being taken or whether the flight, on US carrier American Airlines, took off with the passenger spilling out of his seat.</p>

This squib appeared on the KHOU website on November 18 but is seems to be only a fraction of the story. Read the comments below the story please. ATLANTA -- AirTran Airways says a flight from Atlanta to Houston with more than 70 passengers on board was delayed when a passenger refused to end a cell phone call. ... Flight 297, a Boeing 717, was taxiing on the runway in Atlanta Tuesday afternoon when a crew member asked a passenger to turn off his phone. ... after several failed attempts by the crew member to end the conversation, the captain...

Cody, a chocolate Labrador, has for months greeted customers at the Clearwater BP gas station and convenience store at U.S. 19 and Nursery Road. A St. Petersburg Times story introduced thousands more to the jovial pup. But Thursday morning, a state health inspector stopped by and issued a warning to Karim Mansour, the store's owner: Remove the dog or the Health Department would declare all of Mansour's food products — mostly bottled sodas, Slim Jims and candy bars — unfit for consumption. Mansour, who adopted 6-year-old Cody three years ago, had no choice but sign the warning. His primary violation:...

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years. After examining research of more than 3,000 mummies, anatomists and paleopathologists at the University of Zurich concluded that 18 percent of all mummies in case reports showed a nightmare array of dental diseases... Published in the Journal of Comparative Human Biology (HOMO), the review takes into consideration all studies published since 1977, when computed tomography was first applied to ancient Egyptian mummies. CT imaging revealed an impressive collection of diseases, including...

Portland has the 19th worst traffic congestion in the country, with 23 percent of the city’s roads having “heavy delays,” according to a report released Wednesday.Seattle’s road woes are the worst, followed by Los Angeles at No. 2, with 38 percent of its roads having heavy delays, followed by Chicago (37 percent), San Francisco (35 percent) and New York City (31 percent), according to global positioning system (GPS) company TomTom of Concord, Mass.The company ranked cities as most to least congested according to how fast cars could travel on the street network. Traffic was defined as congested if drivers...

There's been much debate about how to handle overweight passengers on flights. While some airlines may charge for an extra seat, not all do — and now a flight attendant allegedly snapped a photo on an American Airlines flight (destination and take-off point unknown), which of course has been leaked to the press. A Flight Global blog got a hold of the photo, which they say the attendant took to "show her manager what was happening on the aircraft and why she was unhappy about it. Seems the guy paid for only one seat and the gate staff let him...