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Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #400
Saturday, March 17, 2012 |
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| Farty Shades of Green |
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Irish language gains popularity among US students
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· 03/17/2012 10:14:41 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 25 replies ·
· BBC News ·
· March 15, 2012 ·
· unattributed · |
St Patrick's Day has always been a time when Americans have acknowledged their Irish roots, whether real or desired, by celebrating Irish culture in a variety of ways. Some say there is no better window to understanding Irish culture than language. While the Irish language has struggled to survive alongside the more dominant English language, one man from Ireland is helping to lead a modest revival in the US. Through his efforts, a growing number of Irish Americans are forging stronger ties to their Hibernian ancestors. The BBC heard from Ronan Connolly who teaches Irish language classes at Catholic University...
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| Epigraphy & Language |
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Did Stone Age cavemen talk to each other in symbols?
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· 03/12/2012 9:25:34 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 37 replies ·
· The Observer ·
· Saturday, March 10, 2012 ·
· Robin McKie · |
Not surprisingly, these paintings attract tens of thousands of visitors every year. However, there is another aspect to this art that often escapes attention, but which is now providing scientists with fresh insights into our recent evolution. Instead of studying those magnificent galloping horses and bisons, researchers are investigating the symbols painted beside them. These signs are rarely mentioned in most studies of ancient cave art. Some are gathered in groups, some appear in ones or twos, while others are mixed in with the caves' images of animals. There are triangles, squares, full circles, semicircles, open angles, crosses and groups...
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| The Invisible Hand |
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Tools May Have Been First Money
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· 03/14/2012 7:30:14 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 27 replies ·
· LiveScience ·
· Wednesday, February 29, 2012 ·
· Jennifer Welsh · |
Hand axes, small handheld stone tools used by ancient humans, could have served as the first commodity in the human world thanks to their durability and utility. The axes may have been traded between human groups and would have served as a social cue to others, Mimi Lam, a researcher from the University of British Columbia, suggested in her talk at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting here on Feb. 18. "The Acheulean hand ax was standardized and shaped, became exchanged in social networks and took on a symbolic meaning," Lam said. "My suggestion was that...
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| Comparative Technology |
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Why It Took So Long to Invent the Wheel [ s/b, why wheels haven't survived in strata ]
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· 03/12/2012 9:01:18 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 58 replies ·
· Scientific American ·
· March 6, 2012 ·
· Natalie Wolchover · |
Wheels are the archetype of a primitive, caveman-level technology. But in fact, they're so ingenious that it took until 3500 B.C. for someone to invent them. By that time -- it was the Bronze Age -- humans were already casting metal alloys, constructing canals and sailboats, and even designing complex musical instruments such as harps. The tricky thing about the wheel is not conceiving of a cylinder rolling on its edge. It's figuring out how to connect a stable, stationary platform to that cylinder. "The stroke of brilliance was the wheel-and-axle concept," said David Anthony, a professor of anthropology at...
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| Prehistory & Origins |
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Scientists Have Identified a Completely New Human Species from China
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· 03/15/2012 8:14:19 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 53 replies ·
· Gizmodo ·
· Thursday, March 15, 2012 ·
· Jamie Condliffe · |
Your family tree just got wider. Scientists have analyzed fossils found in China, and deemed them to be from a new human species unlike any ever identified before; say hello to your long-lost cousin. The skull, originally unearthed in 1979 in the Guangxi Province of China, has only now been fully analyzed (talk about procrastination, right?). It turns out that it has thick bones, extremely prominent brow ridges, a very short, flat face, and also lacks our typically human chin. "In short, it is anatomically unique among all members of the human evolutionary tree," explains researcher Darren Curnoe to New...
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| British Isles |
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Archaeologists Return to Excavate Major 3,300-Year-Old Bronze Age Site in England
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· 03/17/2012 12:45:08 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 13 replies ·
· Popular Archaeology ·
· March 2012 ·
· unattributed · |
They had stumbled upon an archaeologist's gold mine. Dated to 1365-967 BC and now known as Flag Fen, excavations and research uncovered a monumental site which included a causeway composed of thousands of timber posts arranged in five 1-meter-long rows, and a small timber platform partway across the structure. Between the posts of the causeway, timbers had been built up horizontally in ancient times, providing a "bridge" or dry surface for transportation across the wet lowland upon which the timber structures were built, connecting a higher level land area on its east with a higher level area on its west....
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Ancient footprints found in peat at Borth beach
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· 03/16/2012 9:19:06 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 8 replies ·
· BBC ·
· Thursday, March 15, 2012 ·
· unattributed · |
Human and animal fossilised footprints that may be from the Bronze Age have been exposed on a Ceredigion beach. Archaeologists are racing against changing tides to record and excavate the find in peat at Borth, which gives a snapshot of a time when the shore lay further west. The team believes the footprints could be 3,000 to 4,000 years old. Staff and students from the University of Wales Trinity St David are carrying out the work. A child's footprint and the cast taken of it in the peat at Borth As well as the footprints, a line of post holes...
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| Ancient Autopsies |
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Worsley Man: Hospital scanner probes Iron Age bog death
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· 03/11/2012 5:10:02 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Renfield ·
· 30 replies ·
· BBC News ·
· 3-8-2012 · |
Bryan Sitch, curator of archaeology at the museum, said it now appeared the man had been beaten about the head, garrotted and then beheaded The head of an Iron Age man who died almost 2,000 years ago has been scanned in a Manchester hospital to shed light on how he died. Worsley Man is thought to have lived around 100 AD when Romans occupied much of Britain. Since its discovery in a Salford peat bog in 1958, the head has been kept at Manchester Museum on Oxford Road. The scans at the Manchester Children's Hospital have now revealed more details...
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance |
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Mystery of Anglo-Saxon teen buried in bed with gold cross
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· 03/16/2012 11:46:01 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 30 replies ·
· Past Horizons Magazine ·
· Friday, March 16, 2012 ·
· unattributed · |
One of the earliest Anglo-Saxon Christian burial sites in Britain has been discovered in a village outside Cambridge. The grave of a teenage girl from the mid 7th century AD has an extraordinary combination of two extremely rare finds: a 'bed burial' and an early Christian artefact in the form of a stunning gold and garnet cross. The girl, aged around 16, was buried on an ornamental bed -- a very limited Anglo-Saxon practice of the mid to later 7th century -- with a pectoral Christian cross on her chest, that had probably been sewn onto her clothing. Fashioned from...
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| Faith & Philosophy |
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'World's Oldest Temple' May Have Been Cosmopolitan Center
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· 03/17/2012 10:44:00 AM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 18 replies ·
· LiveScience ·
· Thursday, March 15, 2012 ·
· Owen Jarus · |
Gobekli Tepe is located in southern Turkey near the modern-day city of Urfa. It contains at least 20 stone rings (circles within a circle) that date back more than 11,000 years. T-shaped limestone blocks line the circles and reliefs are carved on them. Long ago, people would fill in the outer circle with debris before building a new circle within... Ancient blades made of volcanic rock that were discovered at what may be the world's oldest temple suggest that the site in Turkey was the hub of a pilgrimage that attracted a cosmopolitan group of people some 11,000 years ago....
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry |
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Artifacts Show Sophistication of Ancient Nomads
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· 03/12/2012 3:50:08 PM PDT ·
· Posted by mojito ·
· 14 replies ·
· NYT ·
· 3/12/2012 ·
· John Noble Wilford · |
Ancient Greeks had a word for the people who lived on the wild, arid Eurasian steppes stretching from the Black Sea to the border of China. They were nomads, which meant "roaming about for pasture." They were wanderers and, not infrequently, fierce mounted warriors. Essentially, they were "the other" to the agricultural and increasingly urban civilizations that emerged in the first millennium B.C. As the nomads left no writing, no one knows what they called themselves. To their literate neighbors, they were the ubiquitous and mysterious Scythians or the Saka, perhaps one and the same people. In any case, these...
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| Near East |
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Syrian Army Attacks Palmyra's Roman Ruins
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· 03/12/2012 8:40:32 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 6 replies ·
· Popular Archaeology ·
· Wednesday, March 7, 2012 ·
· Heritage on the Wire · |
Ongoing hostilities in Syria are now placing the remarkable ancient monumental ruins of Palmyra in the line of fire. Since the violence that erupted in Syria nearly one year ago -- a war that has so far left thousands dead and become one of the world's biggest stories -- the damage to the country's ancient cities and cultural sites as a result of the conflict has remained largely unknown. One report to surface last week, however, tells the story of Palmyra, where residents say the Syrian Army has set up camp in a citadel that overlooks both the modern city...
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| Let's Have Jerusalem |
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The Forgery Trial of the Century Ends
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· 03/15/2012 12:04:58 PM PDT ·
· Posted by STD ·
· 4 replies ·
· Bib Arch ·
· 03/15/2012 ·
· Hershel Shanks · |
Oded Golan Speaks Out on Forgery Trial Verdict Asserts purchasers of looted antiquities preserve valuable information -- After being acquitted of all forgery charges, Oded Golan responded by noting the important role that licensed collectors play by keeping artifacts documented and in Israel.
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy |
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New evidence supporting extraterrestrial impact at the start of the Younger Dryas
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· 03/12/2012 4:54:07 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 33 replies ·
· Watts Up With That 'blog ·
· Monday, March 12, 2012 ·
· Anthony Watts · |
We report the discovery in Lake Cuitzeo in central Mexico of a black, carbon-rich, lacustrine layer, containing nanodiamonds, microspherules, and other unusual materials that date to the early Younger Dryas and are interpreted to result from an extraterrestrial impact. These proxies were found in a 27-m-long core as part of an interdisciplinary effort to extract a paleoclimate record back through the previous interglacial. Our attention focused early on an anomalous, 10-cm-thick, carbon-rich layer at a depth of 2.8 m that dates to 12.9 ka and coincides with a suite of anomalous coeval environmental and biotic changes independently recognized in other...
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis |
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Native American Oral traditions tell of tsunami's destruction hundreds of years ago
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· 03/16/2012 2:06:22 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Theoria ·
· 23 replies ·
· Oregon Dep't of Geology
& Mineral Industries · |
At 9PM on January 26, 1700 one of the world's largest earthquakes occurred along the west coast of North America. The undersea Cascadia thrust fault ruptured along a 680 mile length, from mid Vancouver Island to northern California in a great earthquake, producing tremendous shaking and a huge tsunami that swept across the Pacific. The Cascadia fault is the boundary between two of the Earth's tectonic plates: the smaller offshore Juan de Fuca plate that is sliding under the much larger North American plate. The earthquake also left unmistakable signatures in the geological record as the outer coastal regions subsided...
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| Amazonia |
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Country Notes: Downtown In The Lost Cities of the Amazon
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· 03/16/2012 3:11:41 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 10 replies ·
· Peruvian Times ·
· Friday, March 16, 2012 ·
· Nicholas Asheshov · |
...an article in The New York Times which reported on the discovery in Acre, only a few hours travel from the Madre de Dios Indians, of extensive, deep straight trenches, ridges and mounds dating back to pre-Columbian times, indicating a large, well-developed society. This was just the latest evidence that the Amazon, or at least parts of it, was heavily populated by well-organized societies in much the same way as the high Andes were remodeled by the Tiahuanuco, the Chavin, the Chachapoyas, the Huari, and the Incas. Over the past couple of decades the pre-history of the Americas has been...
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| Roman Empire |
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Blue versus Green: Rocking the Byzantine Empire
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· 03/05/2012 5:55:02 AM PST ·
· Posted by Renfield ·
· 11 replies ·
· Smithsonian Magazine ·
· 3-2-2012 · |
"Bread and circuses," the poet Juvenal wrote scathingly. "That's all the common people want." Food and entertainment. Or to put it another way, basic sustenance and bloodshed, because the most popular entertainments offered by the circuses of Rome were the gladiators and chariot racing, the latter often as deadly as the former. As many as 12 four-horse teams raced one another seven times around the confines of the greatest arenas -- the Circus Maximus in Rome was 2,000 feet long, but its track was not more than 150 feet wide -- and rules were few, collisions all but inevitable, and hideous injuries to the...
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| Longer Perspectives |
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Dirty Tricks, Roman-Style
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· 03/17/2012 4:52:12 PM PDT ·
· Posted by afraidfortherepublic ·
· 5 replies ·
· WSJ.com ·
· 3-16-12 ·
· Philip Freeman · |
Campaign tips from Cicero's brother sound awfully familiar It was a bitter and volatile campaign, with accusations of inconsistency, incompetence and scandal filling the air. Candidates competed to portray themselves as the true conservative choice, while voters fretted about the economy and war threatened in the Middle East. The year was 64 B.C., and Marcus Tullius Cicero was running for Roman consul. Cicero was a political outsider from a small town near Rome, but he was a brilliant man and gifted speaker, with a burning desire to gain the highest office in the ancient republic. As the campaign approached, his...
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Classics and War
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· 03/12/2002 1:40:56 PM PST ·
· Posted by nicmarlo ·
· 30 replies ·
· 419+ views ·
· Imprimis, Hillsdale College ·
· February 2002 ·
· Victor Davis Hanson · |
The following is an abridged version of Dr. Hanson's lecture at a seminar on "Liberal Education, Liberty, and Education Today," delivered in Phillips Auditorium at Hillsdale College on November 11, 2001. -- The study of Classics -- of Greece and Rome -- can offer us moral lessons as well as a superb grounding in art, literature, history, and language. In our present crisis after September 11, it also offers practical guidance -- and the absence of familiarity with the foundations of Western culture in part may explain many of the disturbing reactions to the war that we have seen...
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Tensions in Early American Political Thought
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· 08/17/2002 2:41:45 PM PDT ·
· Posted by aconservaguy ·
· 13 replies ·
· 202+ views ·
· The Freeman (via Libertyhaven.com) ·
· May 1999 ·
· Joseph Stromberg · |
Tensions in Early American Political Thought Joseph R. Stromberg According to the eminent historian of political thought J.G.A. Pocock, republican theory (or "civic humanism") was the most significant current of eighteenth-century English and American political philosophy. In the form of "country ideology," republicanism gave "left" and "right" critics of government policies a framework and believable rhetoric for their arguments. The so-called "radical Whiggism" of the American Revolution was itself, on this reading, merely an extreme and consistent version of the republican ideas of the English opposition. From 1656, when James Harrington published a definitive statement of English republicanism in Oceana,...
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Pericles' Ideal of Democracy
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· 03/31/2003 7:25:35 PM PST ·
· Posted by Mihalis ·
· 24 replies ·
· 383+ views ·
· Thucydides ·
· "The Peloponnesian Wars" · |
Our political system does not compete with with institutions which are elsewhere in force. We do not copy our neighbors, but try to be an example. Our administration favors the many instead of the few: this is why it is called a democracy. The laws afford equal justice to all alike in their private disputes, but we do not ignore the claims of excellence. When a citizen distinguishes himself, then he will be called to serve the state, in preference to others, not as a matter of privilege, but as a reward of merit; and poverty is no bar. ......
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Robert Kaplan on Applying the Wisdom of the Ages to the Twenty-First Century
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· 09/04/2003 9:13:06 PM PDT ·
· Posted by rdb3 ·
· 3 replies ·
· 1,488+ views ·
· FPRI ·
· April 4, 2K2 ·
· Robert Kaplan · |
The Fifth Annual Robert Strausz-HupÈ Lecture April 4, 2002 Summary by Trudy J. Kuehner Robert Kaplan delivered the Fifth Annual Strausz-HupÈ Lecture on January 17, 2002, drawing on his new book, Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos (Random House, 2002). Author of such books as Balkan Ghosts and The Coming Anarchy, Kaplan is a contributing editor of The Atlantic, a fellow of the New America Foudation, and a former senior fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Warrior Politics is available to FPRI members at...
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History for Dollars (Humanities)
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· 06/08/2010 8:25:03 AM PDT ·
· Posted by C19fan ·
· 7 replies ·
· 35+ views ·
· New York Times ·
· June 7, 2010 ·
· David Brooks · |
When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting. When the job market worsens, many students figure they can't indulge in an English or a history major. They have to study something that will lead directly to a job. So it is almost inevitable that over the next few years, as labor markets struggle, the humanities will continue their long slide. There already has been a nearly 50 percent drop in the portion of liberal arts majors over the past generation, and that trend is bound to accelerate. Once the stars of university life, humanities now play bit roles when...
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| Victor Davis Hanson |
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The great Victor Davis Hanson now has a blog
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· 03/09/2004 8:17:13 AM PST ·
· Posted by dennisw ·
· 25 replies ·
· 260+ views ·
· victorhanson ·
· march 2004 ·
· victorhanson · |
In a recent review of Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War, and my Autumn of War, ("Theatres of War: Why the battles over ancient Athens still rage" New Yorker Magazine, [January 12, 2004]), the classicist Daniel Mendelsohn says that I believe that it is immoral to suggest defeat can be seen as victory: "The play asks the very question that Victor Davis Hanson considers "immoral": whether abject defeat can yet somehow be a victory."
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The past as politics - (VDH on critics of Bush and the War on Terror)
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· 07/28/2005 8:40:45 AM PDT ·
· Posted by CHARLITE ·
· 3 replies ·
· 593+ views ·
· Jewish World Review ·
· July 28, 2005 ·
· Victor Davis Hanson · |
So, the next time someone quotes philosopher George Santayana for the umpteenth time that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it," just assume that what follows will probably be wrong. Having a Rolodex of cocktail party quotes to beef-up an argument is not the same as the hard work of learning about the past. Thus, we are now warned that the war against terror is failing because it has lasted as long as World War II -- as if the length of war, not the cost, determines success. Yet the nearly 2,000 U.S. combat fatalities in...
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Why Did Athens Lose? (Victor Davis Hanson on Peloponnesian War)
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· 11/11/2005 11:14:21 AM PST ·
· Posted by neverdem ·
· 15 replies ·
· 3,735+ views ·
· NRO ·
· November 11, 2005 ·
· Victor Davis Hanson · |
The misery of war. EDITOR'S NOTE: Victor Davis Hanson's latest book, A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War has recently been released by Random House. This week National Review Online has been excerpting Chapter 10 of the book. Below is the final installment; the first can be read here and the second here; the third here; the fourth here. Check back tomorrow for the final installment and click on Amazon to purchase A War...
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U.S. Has Gone Hog-Wild Like Athens Of Old
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· 03/26/2009 5:58:22 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Kaslin ·
· 17 replies ·
· 1,274+ views ·
· IBD Editorials ·
· March 26, 2009 ·
· Victor Davis Hanson · |
In the last three months, we've been reduced to something like the ancient Athenian mob -- with opportunistic politicians sometimes inciting, sometimes catering to an already angry public. The Greek comic playwright Aristophanes once described how screaming politicians -- posing as men of the people -- would sway Athenian citizens by offering them all sort of perks and goodies that the government had no idea how to pay for. The historian Thucydides offers even more frightening accounts of bloodthirsty voters after they were aroused by demagogues ("leaders or drivers of the people"). One day in a bloodthirsty rage, voters demanded...
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| The Revolution |
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Brooklyn hunt for spirit of 1776 soldiers
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· 03/11/2012 7:05:35 AM PDT ·
· Posted by Pharmboy ·
· 24 replies ·
· NY Post ·
· March 11, 2012 ·
· Gary Buiso · |
Brooklyn civic groups are leading a charge to discover the exact burial place of over 200 Revolutionary War soldiers killed at the dawn of the United States and dumped near the Gowanus Canal. "These are the men who allowed America to come into existence -- it's a question that needs to be resolved," said Marlene Donnelly, a member of the Friends and Residents of Greater Gowanus,... "The Battle of Gettysburg has an entire field put aside to remember it -- and this one, we just don't remember,"... The grave concern is that development in and around the putrid canal, a...
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Your View: Remember Revolutionary War hero Peter Francisco
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· 03/14/2012 6:04:30 AM PDT ·
· Posted by Pharmboy ·
· 21 replies ·
· South Coast Today ·
· 3-14-12 ·
· Jorge S. Medeiros · |
If you come to downtown New Bedford tomorrow and happen to see the flag of Portugal flying in front of City Hall, it is because March 15 is recognized in Massachusetts as Peter Francisco Day, commemorating the Hercules of the American Revolution immortalized by the U.S. Post Office in 1975 with an 18-cent commemorative stamp: "Contributors to the Cause ... Peter Francisco, fighter extraordinary." Peter Francisco lived in Virginia since age 5, when he was found abandoned at City Point, now Hopewell, on June 23, 1765. Left there by Moorish pirates, he was kidnapped from his parents' backyard on a...
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| Early America |
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1692 Salem Witch Trial Document Sold at Auction
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· 03/15/2012 3:14:31 PM PDT ·
· Posted by nickcarraway ·
· 15 replies ·
· CBS News ·
· March 15, 2012 · |
1692 Salem witch trial document sold at auction The original court indictment of Margaret Scott, an elderly Rowley woman, was hanged during the witchcraft hysteria in Salem in 1692. (Swann Auction Galleries) (CBS/AP) SALEM, Mass - A document from the Salem witch trials was sold at auction for $31,200 when it hit the auction block on Thursday. Pre-auction estimates put it between $25,000 to $35,000. The original court indictment of Margaret Scott, a widow from Rowley, Massachusetts in her 70s, and one of the last people hanged during the 1692 hysteria in colonial Massachusetts. It was part of a private...
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| Paleontology |
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Bite marks reveal behavior of dinosaur-eating croc
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· 03/15/2012 12:36:24 PM PDT ·
· Posted by SunkenCiv ·
· 5 replies ·
· U of Wisconsin-Parkside ·
· Friday, March 2, 2012 ·
· unattributed · |
Research by Dr. Christopher Noto and a team of paleontologists published this week in the international journal Palaios describes recently discovered fossils from the Cretaceous Period (145-65 million years ago) of Texas that show evidence of attack by a new species of giant crocodyliform (croc-relative). Bite marks on fossil bones provide a rare glimpse of predatory behavior that indicate this animal was a top predator that regularly consumed turtles and even ate dinosaurs... For most extinct species, scientists can never directly observe such predatory behavior. Paleontologists must resort to other, indirect indicators. Bite marks on fossil bone are a great...
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| Dinosaurs |
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Researchers Find Sauropod Dinosaur Skulls (big dinosaurs with little heads)
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· 06/01/2005 9:15:35 PM PDT ·
· Posted by NormsRevenge ·
· 24 replies ·
· 3,236+ views ·
· Yahoo ·
· 6/1/05 ·
· Deseret Morning News · |
SALT LAKE CITY - The first known North American skulls of Cretaceous era sauropods -- big dinosaurs with little heads -- have been uncovered in recent years by Brigham Young University and Dinosaur National Monument researchers. About a dozen sauropod skulls are known from the earlier Jurassic era, but these are the first in North America for the Cretaceous, the final 80 million years of the dinosaur period. The four Cretaceous sauropod skulls or parts of skulls were found close to each other at the monument, which straddles the Utah-Colorado border. "We've really got a remarkable -- it's almost mind-boggling...
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| Diet & Cuisine |
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What Did Velociraptor Have For Dinner? Raptor Skeleton Discovered With Bones In Its Gut
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· 03/13/2012 7:17:13 PM PDT ·
· Posted by DogByte6RER ·
· 21 replies ·
· IO9 ·
· Mar 4, 2012 9:30 AM ·
· Lauren Davis · |
What did Velociraptor have for dinner? Raptor skeleton discovered with bones in its gut If you lie awake at night wondering Velociraptor's favorite food was (and whether it tastes much like human flesh), you're in luck. For the first time, a Velociraptor skeleton has been observed with its last supper still filling its guts, and this little guy feasted on long-dead pterosaur. Paleontologist David Hone has published a new paper describing his findings in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, but for those who don't want to breach the paywall, he's also explaining them on his blog. This especially well preserved specimen was...
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| Biology & Cryptobiology |
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Meet Earth's earliest animal with a skeleton
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· 03/09/2012 5:19:09 AM PST ·
· Posted by C19fan ·
· 9 replies ·
· MSNBC ·
· March 9, 2012 ·
· Charles Choi · |
The oldest animal with a skeleton has been discovered, a creature shaped like a thimble that lived on the seafloor more than a half-billion years ago, researchers say. These findings shed light on the evolution of early life on Earth, and could also help scientists recognize life elsewhere in the universe.
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| Oh So Mysteriouso |
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Mayan Elder Says World Won't End
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· 03/14/2012 7:18:12 PM PDT ·
· Posted by nickcarraway ·
· 58 replies ·
· The Pueblo Chieftan ·
· Tuesday, March 13, 2012 ·
· Gayle Perez · |
Instead, he maintains better era will start Dec. 21When the current Mayan calendar cycle ends Dec. 21, the world will not cease to exist, says a Mayan elder. "There is a lot of information of what is going to happen on that date. The scholars say that the Mayan calendar ends, the world ends. But we, as Mayans, don't know anything about that," Elder Miguel Angel Chiquin said speaking through a Spanish translator Monday night at Colorado State University-Pueblo. "The great teachings that our ancestors have left us over the centuries, the 21st of December, we will be moving over...
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| Climate |
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Forget evolution, climate science is the most controversial subject in school
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· 03/13/2012 6:16:57 PM PDT ·
· Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach ·
· 11 replies ·
· Hot Air ·
· posted at 8:20 pm on March 12, 2012 ·
· Tina Korbe · |
Little by little, the federal Department of Education appropriates ever more power for itself. (Never mind that the department might very well be unconstitutional in the first place.) Today, most public schools are dependent one way or another on federal funds. Those funds don't come without strings -- and, under the Obama administration, bureaucrats have tightened those strings considerably. Through the Race to the Top competition, the Ed Department enticed states with reward funds to adopt national standards. (Some state leaders -- like Texas Gov. Rick Perry -- turned down the funding, but they were the exceptions.) The common core...
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| Underwater Archaeology |
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Full Titanic Wreck Site is Mapped for First Time
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· 03/09/2012 7:19:18 AM PST ·
· Posted by the OlLine Rebel ·
· 43 replies ·
· FoxNews.com ·
· March 9, 2012 ·
· AP · |
SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine -- Researchers have pieced together what's believed to be the first comprehensive map of the entire 3-mile-by-5-mile Titanic debris field and hope it will provide new clues about what exactly happened the night 100 years ago when the superliner hit an iceberg, plunged to the bottom of the North Atlantic and became a legend.
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany |
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First Charles Dickens Film Found 111 Years After it Was Made (First Dickens Film)
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· 03/12/2012 6:56:23 PM PDT ·
· Posted by nickcarraway ·
· 9 replies ·
· The Telegraph ·
· 09 Mar 2012 ·
· Florence Waters · |
The earliest surviving Charles Dickens film has been found in the BFI's archive after sitting on a shelf for more than 50 years.The Death of Poor Joe, a one minute-long silent film based on an episode in Dickens' novel 'Bleak House', was filmed in Brighton in 1901. It is thought to be the work of the pioneering Brighton filmmaker G.A. Smith, a view that is backed up by the his wife's appearance in it. Smith was married to the stage actress Laura Bayley, who appeared in many of his films and plays the role of the young boy 'Jo' in...
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| end of digest #400 20120317 |
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