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· Saturday, January 01, 2010 · 21 topics · 2419358 to 2415665 · 733 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 285th issue. Happy New Year! |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #285 Saturday, January 01, 2010 |
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| The Old Piano Roll Blues | |
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| The REAL History of Free Republic, 2009 Edition (c) |
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· 12/30/2009 6:17:52 AM PST · · Posted by Lazamataz · · 129 replies · · 1,746+ views · · Free Republic · · 12/30/2009 · · By Lazamataz · |
What did we all do before Free Republic? Well, it might surprise you to know there never was a time before Free Republic. And as good as the forum is now, it was much then. I remember the Good Old Days of Free Republic. It was the 1970's. You should have been on Free Republic back in the 1970's. It was all different back then. "Clinton's a liar" was named "Kennedy's a perv". Michael Rivero was posting a series debunking the moon landing hoax, and showing how Apollo 13 was likely crippled by a Soviet missile, not some 'center fuel... |
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| Prehistory and Origins | |
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| What Happened to the Hominids Who Were Smarter Than Us? [Apes with 150 IQ?] |
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· 12/31/2009 9:53:37 AM PST · · Posted by Fractal Trader · · 49 replies · · 1,377+ views · · Discover · · 28 December · · Gary Lynch and Richard Granger · |
In the autumn of 1913, two farmers were arguing about hominid skull fragments they had uncovered while digging a drainage ditch. The location was Boskop, a small town about 200 miles inland from the east coast of South Africa. These Afrikaner farmers, to their lasting credit, had the presence of mind to notice that there was something distinctly odd about the bones. They brought the find to Frederick W. Fitz Simons, director of the Port Elizabeth Museum, in a small town at the tip of South Africa. The scientific community of South Africa was small, and before long the skull... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| DNA analysed from early European |
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· 01/01/2010 3:19:58 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 20 replies · · 421+ views · · BBC · · Jan 1, 2010 · · Paul Rincon · |
Scientists have analysed DNA extracted from the remains of a 30,000-year-old European hunter-gatherer. The researchers were able to assign the Kostenki individual to haplogroup "U2", which is relatively uncommon among modern populations. U2 appears to be scattered at low frequencies in populations from South and Western Asia, Europe and North Africa. Despite its rarity, the very presence of this haplogroup in today's Europeans suggests some continuity between Palaeolithic hunters and the continent's present-day inhabitants, argue the authors of the latest study. |
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| Using modern sequencing techniques to study ancient modern humans |
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· 12/31/2009 9:25:55 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 4 replies · · 200+ views · · Cell Press · · Dec 31, 2009 · · Unknown · |
DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals, or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution. So far, studies of this kind on ancestral members of our own species have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish the ancient DNA from modern-day human DNA contamination. Now, research by Svante Pääbo from The Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, published online on December 31st in Current Biology -- a Cell Press publication -- overcomes this hurdle and shows how it is possible to directly analyze DNA from a member of our own species who... |
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| Fertile Crescent | |
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| From Ur's Royal Tombs |
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· 12/30/2009 9:01:56 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · · 283+ views · · Wall St Journal · · December 28, 2009 · · Julia M. Klein · |
Crammed into a single large gallery, the Penn Museum show -- filled with delicate cylinder seals and alabaster pots, and glittering strings of gold, carnelian and lapis lazuli beads -- is at once frustratingly old-fashioned and deliberately retro in its design. Musical selections from the expedition's record collection play in the background. The texts are well-written but long and somewhat dense. They are supplemented by archival and contemporary images of the site and computer terminals displaying the exhibition's Web site and other Web resources and offering visitors a chance to "live blog" about the show. |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Mayan glyphs detail priest's life, blood sacrifices |
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· 12/30/2009 8:53:47 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · 339+ views · · Yahoo! · · Monday, December 28, 2009 · · AFP · |
Experts are studying the first Mayan hieroglyphic script dealing with the life of a high priest, his blood sacrifices and acts of penance, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) said. The text consists of 260 glyphs carved into a series of seashell earrings and manta ray stingers found inside a burial urn. The urn, which also contained the remains of an important Maya priest, wrapped in bright red cloth, was uncovered during excavations 11 years ago in Comalcalco, in southeastern Tabasco state, the institute said in a statement. "It is the longest Maya hieroglyphic script ever found to... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Honduran ruins predate Mayans |
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· 01/01/2010 2:32:32 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · · 329+ views · · Tiscali · · May 13, 2003 (what's the rush?) · · Reuters · |
Ruins of a pre-Columbian city built before the rise of the Maya civilisation have been discovered in a remote region of eastern Honduras, the Institute of Anthropology and History says. The so-called City of Encounters, in the wilderness of Botaderos mountain about 120 miles northeast of the capital, includes vestiges of three rectangular plazas, various mounds and small stone-encrusted pillars. It appears to have been built in the pre-Classical or early Classical period between 300 B.C. and 300 A.D., said Mexican anthropologist Victor Heredia, an investigator for the institute. "It's a pre-Hispanic city, a complex site. It has a well-defined... |
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| China | |
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| China says discovers tomb of famed general Cao Cao |
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· 12/27/2009 4:19:23 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 31 replies · · 542+ views · · Reuters · · Dec 27, 2009 · · Reporting by Beijing Newsroom · · Writing by Lucy Hornby · · Editing by Sugita Katyal · |
Chinese archeologists have unearthed a large third-century tomb, which they say could be that of Cao Cao, the legendary politician and general famous throughout East Asia for his Machiavellian tactics. The tomb, discovered in Xigaoxue village near the ancient Chinese city of Anyang, Henan Province, has an epitaph and inscription that appear to refer to Cao Cao, Central China Television said on Sunday. A Chinese proverb, "speak of Cao Cao and he appears," is the equivalent of "speak of the devil" in English. |
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| Egypt | |
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| Threshold to Cleopatra's mausoleum discovered off Alexandria coast |
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· 01/01/2010 12:23:02 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · · 671+ views · · Guardian · · Wednesday, December 23, 2009 · · Helena Smith · |
A team of Greek marine archaeologists who have spent years conducting underwater excavations off the coast of Alexandria in Egypt have unearthed a giant granite threshold to a door that they believe was once the entrance to a magnificent mausoleum that Cleopatra VII, queen of the Egyptians, had built for herself shortly before her death. They believe the 15-tonne antiquity would have held a seven metre-high door so heavy that it would have prevented the queen from consoling her Roman lover before he died, reputedly in 30BC... Tzalas believes the discovery of the threshold sheds new light on an element... |
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| Romans | |
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| Archaeological dig to reveal mystery Roman building in Chester |
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· 01/01/2010 10:44:59 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · 364+ views · · Chester Chronicle · · Thursday, December 24, 2009 · · unattributed · |
Archaeologists are investigating a mystery Roman building underneath the Dewa Roman Experience premises in the city centre. They will tunnel through the brickwork and sandstone blocks above the Roman foundations of the secret building and into the void behind... Archaeologist Mike Emery said: "It's something substantial but we don't know that is. It has been suggested it might be Roman hospital but no-one quite knows. We will be literally tunnelling into the dark." The Dewa Roman Experience, popular for school visits, already features exposed archaeological trenches from 1991 including remnants of the Roman fortress, plus Saxon and medieval remains including... |
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| Diet and Cuisine | |
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| Alcohol's Neolithic Origins: Brewing Up a Civilization |
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· 12/30/2009 9:14:41 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · 424+ views · · Der Spiegel · · Frank Thadeusz · |
Did our Neolithic ancestors turn to agriculture so that they could be sure of a tipple? US Archaeologist Patrick McGovern thinks so. The expert on identifying traces of alcohol in prehistoric sites reckons the thirst for a brew was enough of an incentive to start growing crops... Here is how the story likely began -- a prehistoric human picked up some dropped fruit from the ground and popped it unsuspectingly into his or her mouth. The first effect was nothing more than an agreeably bittersweet flavor spreading across the palate. But as alcohol entered the bloodstream, the brain started sending... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| World's Weirdest Fish? |
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· 12/28/2009 1:05:36 PM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 48 replies · · 1,523+ views · · nationalgeographic · |
Seahorses are truly unique, and not just because of their unusual equine shape. Unlike most other fish, they are monogamous and mate for life. Rarer still, they are among the only animal species on Earth in which the male bears the unborn young. Found in shallow tropical and temperate waters throughout the world, these upright-swimming relatives of the pipefish can range in size from 0.6 inches (1.5 centimeters) to 14 inches (35 centimeters) long. Male seahorses are equipped with a brood pouch on their ventral, or front-facing, side. When mating, the female deposits her eggs into his pouch, and the... |
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| Climate | |
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| Arctic Could Face Warmer and Ice-Free Conditions (Pliocene projections - USGS) |
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· 12/29/2009 8:37:20 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 61 replies · · 880+ views · · U.S. Geological Survey · · Dec 29, 2009 · · Unknown · |
There is increased evidence that the Arctic could face seasonally ice-free conditions and much warmer temperatures in the future. Scientists documented evidence that the Arctic Ocean and Nordic Seas were too warm to support summer sea ice during the mid-Pliocene warm period (3.3 to 3 million years ago). This period is characterized by warm temperatures similar to those projected for the end of this century, and is used as an analog to understand future conditions. The U.S. Geological Survey found that summer sea-surface temperatures in the Arctic were between 10 to 18°C (50 to 64°F) during the mid-Pliocene, while current... |
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| Glaciation and the Ice Ages | |
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| Soils give clean look at past carbon dioxide: It could take less of the greenhouse gas to reach a... |
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· 12/31/2009 6:51:49 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 47 replies · · 682+ views · · Nature News · · 30 December 2009 · · Richard A. Lovett · |
It could take less of the greenhouse gas to reach a particular level of warming. Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may have been lower in warm eras of the Earth's distant past than once believed, scientists reported this week. The finding raises concern that carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning may, in the near future, be closer to those associated with ancient hothouse climates. More immediately, the work brings one line of palaeoclimate evidence -- that deduced from ancient soils -- into agreement with other techniques for studying past climate. "It makes a major revision to one of the most... |
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| Catastrophism and Astronomy | |
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| North Magnetic Pole Moving East Due to Core Flux |
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· 12/28/2009 4:21:56 PM PST · · Posted by NYer · · 89 replies · · 2,343+ views · · National Geographic · · December 28, 2009 · · Richard A. Lovett · |
Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says. The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space. Now, newly analyzed data suggest that there's a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the core's surface, possibly being created by a mysterious "plume" of magnetism arising from deeper in the core. And it's this region that... |
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
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| Wonders of the World: Chartres Cathedral, France |
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· 01/01/2010 7:36:59 PM PST · · Posted by Steelfish · · 19 replies · · 356+ views · · Telegraph(UK) · · January 01st 2010 · |
The UNESCO World Heritage Site of Chartres is a French gothic masterpiece, writes Emily Craig. The 13th century Chartres Cathedral, the largest cathedral in France, is one of the finest examples of French high Gothic art. Several cathedrals stood on this site from the 10th century onwards, but the building we see today was completed in 1260. It includes several architectural inventions pioneered at Chartres, such as flying buttresses. The cathedral is surmounted by a pair of spires, one Gothic in style, the other an example of... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| William Shakespeare and Fulke Greville |
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· 12/27/2009 3:00:15 AM PST · · Posted by crypt · · 18 replies · · 395+ views · · The Mail · |
The mystery surrounding Lord Brooke Fulke Greville and William Shakespeare is creating huge interest around the World,with many people questioning if William Shakespeare really was the poet Fulke Greville or at the very least Shakespeares Master. |
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| Scotland Yet | |
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| [Battle of] Bannockburn |
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· 01/01/2010 9:55:48 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · 3+ views · · MacBRAVEHEART homepage · · prior to 2010 · · unattributed · |
The battle of Bannockburn was undoubtedly of one of the most spectacular battles of the Scottish Wars of Independence. Although the struggle against the English was to continue for some 13 years more, the Scottish victory was of enormous importance as it secured the future of the throne for Robert Bruce, King of Scots. To avoid confusion, at this point it should be noted that Robert Bruce, shown as a traitor in the film Braveheart, was no such thing. Never on any occasion did Bruce betray Wallace, since in actual fact, Wallace's support lay with the restoration of John Baliol... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Historical Colonization Was by Countries with Smaller GDP |
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· 12/31/2009 4:02:11 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · · 170+ views · · Next Big Future · · Dec 30, 2009 · · Brian Wang · |
China and India and other nations had larger GDP but it was Spain, Portugal, France, Netherlands and Britain that were the players in colonizing the Americas. |
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| The Civil War | |
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| When legerdemain is used to pass an unpopular bill |
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· 12/24/2009 12:15:15 AM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 16 replies · · 671+ views · · Washington Examiner · · December 23, 2009 · · Michael Barone · |
It's time to blow the whistle on two erroneous statements that opponents and proponents of the health care legislation being jammed through Congress have been making. Republicans have been saying that never before has Congress passed such an unpopular bill with such important ramifications by such a narrow majority. Barack Obama has been saying that passage of the bill will mean that the health care issue will be settled once and for all. The Republicans and Obama are both wrong. But perhaps they can be forgiven because the precedent for Congress passing an unpopular bill is an old one, and... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| On the Trail of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid |
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· 01/01/2010 1:05:05 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · · 591+ views · · Time · · Thursday, December 31, 2009 · · Jean Friedman-Rudovsky · |
The red canyons and parched planes surrounding the new Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid Memorial Museum might make you think you're in the Old West. But the electrical wiring and a searing altitude headache tell you this is not California circa 1900, but high-up the mountains in present day Bolivia. Here in the tiny town of San Vicente (population 800), the world's most famous outlaws are supposed to have been gunned down 101 years ago, days after robbing the payroll of a Bolivian mine. Offing the bandits would seem to have been sufficient revenge but area residents still think the... |
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| end of digest #285 20100101 | |
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· Saturday, January 01, 2010 · 21 topics · 2419358 to 2415665 · 733 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 285th issue. Happy New Year! |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #286 Saturday, January 09, 2010 |
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| Hope and Change | |
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| Berkeley High May Cut Out Science Labs (Benefits white students- "redesigned" to close gap) |
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· 12/27/2009 10:55:23 AM PST · · Posted by civilwar2 · · 57 replies · 1,531+ views · · East Bay Express · · 12-23-09 · · Eric Klein · |
The proposal to put the science-lab cuts on the table was approved recently by Berkeley High's School Governance Council, a body of teachers, parents, and students who oversee a plan to change the structure of the high school to address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap, where white students are doing far better than the state average while black and Latino students are doing worse.The full plan to close the racial achievement gap by altering the structure of the high school is known as the High School Redesign. It will come before the Berkeley School Board as an information item at... |
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| China | |
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| Vatican Reveals Secret Archives |
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· 01/02/2010 9:42:37 AM PST · · Posted by Steelfish · · 50 replies · 1,692+ views · · Telegraph(UK) · · January 02nd 2010 · · Nick Squires · |
Vatican Reveals Secret Archives A 13th-century letter from Genghis Khan's grandson demanding homage from the pope is among a collection of documents from the Vatican's Secret Archives that has been published for the first time. By Nick Squires in Rome 01 Jan 2010 In a letter dated 1246 from Grand Khan Guyuk, pictured, to Pope Innocent IV, Genghis Khan's grandson demands that the Pontiff travel to central Asia in person The Holy See's archives contain scrolls, parchments and leather-bound volumes with correspondence dating back more than 1,000 years. High-quality reproductions of 105 documents, 19 of which have never been seen... |
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| Navigation | |
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| Unpaving Paradise: Digging Up Taiwan's Ancient Heritage |
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· 01/05/2010 4:28:30 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 5 replies · 188+ views · · The Wild East · · July 16th, 2009 · · Trista di Genova, MSt, Oxford University · |
Evidence of human settlement in Taiwan -- so far -- dates back at least 30,000 years. Where these people originated from is unclear and something for which linguists, geneticists and archaeologists are trying to build a model. There was a "transmission of people" as well as the Austronesian language and culture, into Oceania from Southeast Asia, coming "from Taiwan or nearby areas" according to the author of "The First Human," Ann Gibbons; and Southeast China... The early Tapenkeng culture in Taiwan (6,000 to 5,000 BP before present), characterized by the advent of agriculture, overlapped the late Changpin culture (40,000 to... |
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| English Civil War | |
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| Devizes burial pit mystery [ Battle of Roundway's Bloody Ditch, July 13 1643 ] |
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· 01/03/2010 10:48:19 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · 262+ views · · Wiltshire Gazette and Herald · · Friday 1st January 2010 · · Lewis Cowen · |
Devizes pensioner Phil Hancock... is convinced that the 600 Parliamentarian troops, many of them cavalry, who died in the Bloody Ditch on July 13 1643, are buried in an ancient chalk pit close to the site of the battle. Mr Hancock, 85, from Park View, Devizes, has been investigating the mystery of the whereabouts of the bodies for nearly three years. He said: "I read in the Wiltshire Archaeological Society magazine an article dated June 1950 by Mr J M Prest, who said that bones had been found in a chalk pit on the slopes of Roundway. "But no further... |
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| Austin Powers City Limits | |
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| Andes' Formation Was A 'Species Pump' For South America |
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· 01/03/2010 4:31:10 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 8 replies · 305+ views · · ScienceDaily · · January 11, 2009 · · University of Gothenburg via AlphaGalileo · |
South America is the world's most species-rich area. There have been many theories as to why, ranging from animals and plants accompanying the continent when it broke loose from Africa to variations in the extent of the rainforests over millions of years creating new species... South America's unique richness of species has been explained by several hypotheses. One states that animals and plants "accompanied" the South American continent when it broke loose from Africa 100 million years ago. Another proposes that many species were formed when the rainforest shrank into smaller areas during the Ice Ages and then subsequently expanded...... |
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| Hammers, Anvils, Stirrups | |
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| From Jaw to Ear: Transition Fossil Reveals Ear Evolution in Action (Yanoconodon) |
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· 03/16/2007 7:09:54 PM PDT · · Posted by Stultis · · 11 replies · 1,228+ views · · Scientific American · · 14 March 2007 · · David Biello · |
Now hear this: early mammal fossil shows how sensitive ear bones evolved. The mammal ear is a very precise system for hearing -- enabling everything from human appreciation of music to the echolocation of bats. Three tiny bones known as ossicles -- the hammer (malleus), anvil (incus) and stirrup (stapes) -- work together to propagate sound from the outside world to the tympanic membrane, otherwise known as the eardrum. From there, the sound is transmitted to the brain and informs the listener about pitch, intensity and even location. But it has... |
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| Prehistory and Origins | |
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| First Molars Provide Insight Into Evolution of Great Apes, Humans |
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· 01/03/2010 10:10:25 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 111 replies · 759+ views · · ScienceDaily · · Tuesday, December 29, 2009 · · Arizona State University, via EurekAlert · |
The timing of molar emergence and its relation to growth and reproduction in apes is being reported by two scientists at Arizona State University's Institute of Human Origins in the Dec. 28 online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). From the smallest South American monkeys to the largest African apes, the timing of molar development and eruption is closely attuned to many fundamental aspects of a primate's biology, according to Gary Schwartz, a researcher at the Institute of Human Origins and an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Viral phenomenon: Ancient microbe invaded human DNA |
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· 01/06/2010 11:18:33 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · 499+ views · · AFP · · Jan 6, 2010 · · Unknown · |
PARIS (AFP) -- Humans carry in their genome the relics of an animal virus that infected their forerunners at least 40 million years ago, according to research published Wednesday by the British science journal Nature. The invader is called bornavirus, a brain-infecting pathogen that was first identified in 1970s. Scientists led by Keizo Tomonaga of Japan's Osaka University compared the DNA of a range of mammals, including humans, apes, elephants, marsupials and rodents, to look for tell-tale signatures of bornavirus code. In the human genome, the team found several bornavirus fragments but also in the form of two genes that... |
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| Agriculture and Animal Husbandry | |
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| Evolution caught in the act: Scientists measure how quickly genomes change |
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· 01/02/2010 10:57:44 AM PST · · Posted by Restore · · 66 replies · 801+ views · · Physorg.com · · January 1, 2010 · · Max-Planck-Gesellschaft · |
Mutations are the raw material of evolution. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tubingen, Germany, and Indiana University in Bloomington have now been able to measure for the first time directly the speed with which new mutations occur in plants. Their findings shed new light on a fundamental evolutionary process. They explain, for example, why resistance to herbicides can appear within just a few years. "While the long term effects of genome mutations are quite well understood, we did not know how often new mutations arise in the first place," said Detlef Weigel, director at the... |
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| Payback's a Beeotch | |
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| Early humans faced death from the skies |
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· 01/13/2006 12:34:56 PM PST · · Posted by microgood · · 31 replies · 1,737+ views · · The Seattle PI · · Jan 13, 2006 · · ALEXANDRA ZAVIS · |
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- An American researcher believes he has solved the mystery of how one of the most important human forerunners died nearly 2 million years ago: An eagle killed the 3 1/2-year-old ape-man known as the Taung child. The discovery suggests small human ancestors known as hominids had to survive being hunted not only by large predators on the ground but by fearsome raptors that swooped from the sky, said Lee Berger, a senior paleoanthropologist at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand. "These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Cuz Animals Are People Too, Ya Know? |
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· 12/23/2009 10:05:41 AM PST · · Posted by Mobile Vulgus · · 31 replies · 487+ views · · Publius Forum · · 12/23/09 · · Warner Todd Huston · |
I've always been amazed at liberals when it comes to their absurd penchant for acting as if animals are somehow just like people. This anthropomorphizing of the animal kingdom is fine if you are talking with kids, reading fairy tales, or creating entertainment, but when you are talking like adults about science or generally about animals there is no place for it. Animals are not people. It's just that simple. But apparently we can't tell that to the left-wingers at NPR because on Dec. 22 on the Morning Edition program we got a pretty silly story about baboons and their... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Archaeologists claim discovery of oldest Hebrew writing |
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· 01/07/2010 1:25:03 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 29 replies · 658+ views · · AFP · · Jan 7, 2009 · · Unknown · |
This undated picture released by the University of Haifa shows an ancient inscription on a piece of pottery in early Hebrew writing. The 3,000 year-old inscription discovered at a site where the Bible says David slew Goliath has been deciphered, showing it to be the earliest known Hebrew writing, Israeli archaeologists said. (AFP/U of Haifa) JERUSALEM (AFP) -- A 3,000 year-old inscription discovered at a site where the Bible says David slew Goliath has been deciphered, showing it to be the earliest known Hebrew writing, Israeli archaeologists said on Thursday. The pottery shard with five lines of text in the... |
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| King David Era Pottery Shard Supports Biblical Narrative |
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· 01/08/2010 10:11:01 AM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 8 replies · 678+ views · · INN · · 1/8/10 · · Avi Yellin · |
(IsraelNN.com) A breakthrough in the research of the Hebrew Scriptures has shed new light on the period in which the Bible books of the Prophets were written. Professor Gershon Galil of the Department of Biblical Studies at the University of Haifa has deciphered an inscription dating from the 10th century BCE (the period of King David's reign) and has proven the inscription to be ancient Hebrew, thus making it the earliest known example of Hebrew writing. The significance of this breakthrough relates to the fact that at least some of the Biblical scriptures are now proven to have been composed... |
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| Dead Sea Scrolls | |
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| Jordan, PA Claim Dead Sea Scrolls |
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· 01/02/2010 4:59:27 PM PST · · Posted by sofaman · · 58 replies · 1,195+ views · · Arutz Sheva, Israel National News · · Published: 01/02/10, 11:49 PM · · Last Update: 01/02/10, 10:55 PM · · Hillel Fendel · |
The London-based Globe and Mail reports that Jordan has asked Canada to seize Israel's 2,000-year-old Dead Sea scrolls that are currently on display in Toronto. The scrolls are on display until until Sunday at the Royal Ontario Museum. Jordan claims that the scrolls were found in "disputed territory" that Israel captured from Jordanian control in 1967, and asks Canada to hold them until the question of their ownership is settled. Jordan's control of Judea, Samaria and the Jordan Valley - which it called the "West Bank" - from 1948 until 1967, was recognized internationally by only two countries: Great Britain... |
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| Turin Cloth | |
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| Shroud of Turin Not Jesus', Tomb Discovery Suggests |
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· 12/24/2009 10:28:07 AM PST · · Posted by Salman · · 42 replies · 1,127+ views · · National Geographic · · December 17, 2009 · · Mati Milstein · |
From a long-sealed cave tomb, archaeologists have excavated the only known Jesus-era burial shroud in Jerusalem, a new study says. The discovery adds to evidence that the controversial Shroud of Turin did not wrap the body of Christ, researchers say. [ snip ] The weave of the Tomb of the Shroud fabric, the new study says, casts further doubt on the Shroud of Turin as Jesus' burial cloth. The newfound shroud was something of a patchwork of simply woven linen and wool textiles, the study found. The Shroud of Turin, by contrast, is made of a single textile woven in... |
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| Religion of Peace | |
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| Reports: Iraq De-Judaizing Ezekiel's Tomb |
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· 01/05/2010 7:52:40 AM PST · · Posted by stars & stripes forever · · 24 replies · 682+ views · · IsraelNationalNews.com · · Jan. 5, 2010 · · Hillel Fendel · |
IsraelNN.com) Early reports that Iraq plans to retain the Jewish nature of the Tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel are apparently false. Sources in Baghdad say that the government plans to turn it into a mosque and erase all Jewish markings. Iraq announced earlier this year that it would revamp the ancient burial site, which is located in Al-Kifl, a small town south of Baghdad. The U.S.-backed government announcement implied that its Jewish nature would continue to be emphasized. Since then, however . . . |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Iran warns British Museum over Cyrus cylinder |
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· 01/07/2010 4:40:36 PM PST · · Posted by Texas Fossil · · 59 replies · 826+ views · · Press TV · · Thu, 08 Oct 2009 09:50:33 GMT · · NAT/MTM/AKM · |
Tehran will cease cooperation with the British Museum in London until it loans the Cyrus the Great Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran. The clay cylinder is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with an account by Cyrus II, king of Persia (559-530 BC). The Cyrus Cylinder is described as the world's first charter of human rights. ....... Iranian officials called on the British Museum to loan the country's ancient cylinder,..... said Hamid Baqaei "If the British Museum continues to make excuses for not loaning the artifact to the National Museum, we will, unfortunately, cease any cooperation with them, including archaeological... |
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| Greece | |
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| Did Unemployed Minoan Artists Land Jobs in Ancient Egypt? |
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· 01/06/2010 8:39:38 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · 274+ views · · Heritage Key · · January 5, 2010 · · Owen Jarus · |
Two of those palaces were decorated, for a very short period of time, with Minoan frescoes. These include drawings of bull-leaping scenes -- which are well known from the Palace of Knossos in Crete. Site excavator Manfred Bietak published a book in 2007 that discussed these frescoes and compared them with the more famous scenes at the Palace of Knossos. There is no question that the frescoes at Tell el-Dab'a are Aegean influenced, and it seems likely that the artists are from Crete... Bietak said in his book that the paintings may symbolize the marriage of a Minoan princess into... |
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| Nubia | |
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| Monumental Statue Of Black Egyptian Pharaoh Found [ Taharqa of 25th Dynasty ] |
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· 01/03/2010 11:35:29 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · 787+ views · · Digital Journal · · Saturday, January 2, 2010 · · Christopher Szabo · |
Archaeologists have discovered a monumental statue of an ancient black Egyptian pharaoh of the Nubian 25th Dynasty in Dangeil, Sudan, about 350 kilometres northeast of the capital, Khartoum. The granite statue of the warrior pharaoh Taharqa weighs one ton, according to its discoverer, Dr Caroline Rocheleau of the North Carolina Museum of Art... The statues of two other Nubian pharaohs were also discovered... Taharqa was ruler of both Egypt and Nubia (Kush) during the 25th Dynasty, which was based in Nubia, which had a long history of pyramid building, apparently independent of Egypt. His reign is dated from 690 BC... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Largest Saqqara Tomb Discovered [ 26th Dynasty ] |
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· 01/05/2010 5:49:07 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · 516+ views · · Discovery News · · Monday, January 4, 2010 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
An Egyptian team led by Dr. Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, has unearthed the largest tomb yet discovered in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara, also known as the "City of the Dead." Filled with skeletons, coffins and eagle mummies, the tomb was found just near the entrance point of the archaeological site. Simply cut into limestone, the burial, which dates to the 26th Dynasty (664 -525 B.C.), extends from a large rock-hewn hall into a number of corridors and small rooms. Inside, the archaeologists found several coffins, skeletons and pots. At the tomb's northern end, the... |
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| Only Had Eyes for Her | |
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| Cleopatra's stunner make-up cured eye disease as well |
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· 01/07/2010 4:07:08 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · 743+ views · · AFP · · Jan 7, 2010 · · Unknown · |
PARIS (AFP) -- Ancient Egypt's stunning eye make-up not only shielded wearers from the dark deeds of the evil eye but also protected them against eye disease, French scientists said Thursday. Ancient Egyptians some 4,000 years ago produced the make-up used to darken and adorn eyes with lead and lead salts in mixtures that sometimes took a month to concoct, said Philippe Walter, who co-headed a team of scientists from the Louvre museum and the CNRS national research institute. "We knew ancient Greeks and Romans too had noted the make-up had medicinal properties, but wanted to determine exactly how," he... |
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
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| Handful of Iron Beads Offer Clues to Solve Mystery of Ancient Iron Forges |
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· 01/02/2010 5:55:31 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · 791+ views · · ScienceDaily · · Thursday, December 31, 2009 · · Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) via AlphaGalileo · |
When archaeologist Ruth Iren Øien noticed a cluster of tiny iron beads in the ground, she knew she was onto something. She did not know, however, that her team had stumbled upon Scandinavia's oldest and most complex group of iron forges... The iron beads were first found in November 2008, right at the very end of a highly weather-dependent field season in Norway. With frost about to set in, further investigation had to wait until the summer of 2009. But in July, Øien's team returned to the site. The iron beads that had piqued Øien's interest were only 1 to1.5... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, PreClovis | |
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| Amazon explorers uncover signs of a real El Dorado |
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· 01/06/2010 5:23:56 AM PST · · Posted by TigerLikesRooster · · 15 replies · 908+ views · · Guardian · · 01/05/10 · · Rory Carroll · |
Amazon explorers uncover signs of a real El Dorado Satellite technology detects giant mounds over 155 miles, pointing to sophisticated pre-Columbian culture Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 5 January 2010 19.08 GMT An aerial picture of traces of earthworks built by a lost Amazonian civilisation dating to 200AD. Photograph: National Geographic It is the legend that drew legions of explorers and adventurers to their deaths: an ancient empire of citadels and treasure hidden deep in the Amazon jungle. Spanish conquistadores ventured into the rainforest seeking fortune, followed over the centuries by others convinced they would find a lost... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Fossil tracks record 'oldest land-walkers' |
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· 01/07/2010 8:51:50 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 17 replies · 416+ views · · bbc · · 6 January 2010 · · Jonathan Amos · |
The oldest evidence of four-legged animals walking on land has been discovered in southeast Poland. Rocks from a disused quarry record the "footprints" of unknown creatures that lived about 397 million years ago. Scientists tell the journal Nature that the fossil trackways even retain the impressions left by the "toes" on the animals' feet. The team says the find means that land vertebrates appeared millions of years earlier than previously supposed. "This place has yielded what I consider to be some of the most exciting fossils I've ever encountered in my career as a palaeontologist," said team member Per Ahlberg... |
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| Biology | |
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| 'Lifeless' prion proteins are 'capable of evolution' |
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· 01/07/2010 1:12:54 PM PST · · Posted by OldNavyVet · · 39 replies · 483+ views · · BBC News · · 1 January 2010 · · BBC News / Scripps Research Institute · |
Scientists have shown for the first time that "lifeless" prion proteins, devoid of all genetic material, can evolve just like higher forms of life. The Scripps Research Institute in the US says the prions can change to suit their environment and go on to develop drug resistance. Prions are associated with 20 different brain diseases in humans and animals. |
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| Cryptobiology | |
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| Loch Ness monster death rumours dismissed |
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· 01/07/2010 3:03:32 PM PST · · Posted by Daffynition · · 42 replies · 563+ views · · News.com.au · · January 07, 2010 · · staff reporter · |
RUMOURS Scotland's fabled Loch Ness monster is dead were dismissed by Nessie fans today. Suspicions that the monster, said to have lurked in the deep waters of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands, was extinct were raised as credible sightings last year waned to just one. Gary Campbell, president of the Official Loch Ness Monster Fan Club, told the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper that the single sighting, made just off the Clansman Hotel by Loch Ness, Scotland on June 6 2009, was judged by him to have been a credible report. "That's why were so relieved to have heard about... |
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| Flood, Here Comes the Flood | |
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| Relic reveals Noah's ark was circular |
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· 01/02/2010 11:48:34 AM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 45 replies · 1,455+ views · · guardian.co.uk · · Jan. 1, 2010 · · Maev Kennedy · |
That they processed aboard the enormous floating wildlife collection two-by-two is well known. Less familiar, however, is the possibility that the animals Noah shepherded on to his ark then went round and round inside. According to newly translated instructions inscribed in ancient Babylonian on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one virtuous man, his family and the animals from god's watery wrath was not the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but rather a giant circular reed raft. The now battered tablet, aged about 3,700 years, was found somewhere in the Middle East by... |
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| Catastrophism and Astronomy | |
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| Polar Ice Caps Melting! |
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· 01/02/2010 2:29:54 PM PST · · Posted by annie laurie · · 49 replies · 3,076+ views · · American Thinker · · January 02, 2010 · · Larrey Anderson · |
The Watts Up With That website has a scary story about our melting polar ice caps. John Lockwood from Washington D.C. found an interesting article from the Washington Post. Here are some excerpts: The Arctic seems to be warming up. Reports ... all point to a radical change in climatic conditions, and hitherto unheard of high temperatures in that part of the earth's surface. Ice conditions were exceptional. In fact, so little ice has never before been noted. Dr. Hoel reports that he made a section of the Gulf Stream at 81 degrees north latitude and took soundings to a... |
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| War by Proxy | |
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| No rise in atmospheric carbon fraction over the last 150 years: University of Bristol |
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· 01/05/2010 2:43:42 PM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 12 replies · 346+ views · · Hot Air · · 8:48 am on January 4, 2010 · · Ed Morrissey · |
Science Daily reported on a new study from the University of Bristol released over the holidays that deserves to get wider attention. In contrast to claims from anthropogenic global-warming activists, this new analysis refutes one of the key principles of carbon-driven warming: Most of the carbon dioxide emitted by human activity does not remain in the atmosphere, but is instead absorbed by the oceans and terrestrial ecosystems. In fact, only about 45 percent of emitted carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere. To assess whether the airborne fraction is indeed increasing, Wolfgang Knorr of the Department of Earth Sciences at the... |
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| Climate | |
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| ClimateGate: 30 years in the making ( PDF File with great Detail Avaiable) |
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· 12/24/2009 2:36:41 PM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 32 replies · 1,011+ views · · JoNova · · December 2009 · · Mohib Ebrahim · |
Mohib Ebrahim has created professional timelines for exhibitions, so it must have seemed only natural to him to want to visually piece together the full timeline of ClimateGate, laying out the analysis, graphs, emails and history of the scandal as revealed by dozens of researchers over the past weeks, months and years. Download The PDF (788k)There's a gif version of the poster if you don't like pdf's (1.7Mb)The PDF chart is available in different sizes, each also with the 10 pages of cited references. The full chart is over 2 meters wide (94 in x34 in, or 2 A0 landscape pages) and best... |
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| Climategate and the Migrating Arctic Tree Line |
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· 01/06/2010 10:47:02 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 47 replies · 1,048+ views · · American Thinker · · January 07, 2010 · · Dexter Wright · |
One of the more enlightening e-mails to spill out of the Climategate scandal is a report on the progress of Siberian fossilized tree ring work. The report, dated October 9, 1998, focuses on some two thousand samples of fossilized trees thirty-three nautical miles north of the present-day Arctic Circle. The report attempts to correlate the migration, north and south, of the tree line with annual tree ring dating so that an actual year can be assigned to a certain location of the Arctic Circle. The report correctly states that there has been migration of the polar tree line over the... |
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| Glaciation and the Ice Ages | |
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| Northern South America Rainier During Little Ice Age [ that's rainy-er, as in more rainy ] |
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· 01/03/2010 10:21:29 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · 217+ views · · ScienceDaily · · Friday, January 1, 2010 · · American Geophysical Union, via EurekAlert · |
During the Little Ice Age (LIA; covering approximately the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries), northern South America experienced about 10 percent more rainfall than during the twentieth century, according to Reuter et al. The authors analyzed two new records of oxygen isotopes (which track precipitation levels) from cave formations in northeastern Peru. They attribute the higher rainfall in northern South America during the LIA to cooler spring sea surface temperatures in the tropical North Atlantic. Furthermore, the authors note that some studies have shown that during the twentieth century, a significant amount of rainfall variability in northern South America was... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Remains Of Early 1900s Plane Found In Antarctica |
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· 01/02/2010 4:32:29 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 10 replies · 783+ views · · Discovery News · · 1/2/10 · |
Remains of the first airplane ever taken to Antarctica, in 1912, have been found by Australian researchers, the team announced Saturday. The Mawson's Huts Foundation had been searching for the plane for three summers before stumbling upon metal pieces of it on New Year's Day. "The biggest news of the day is that we've found the air tractor, or at least parts of it!" team member Tony Stewart wrote on the team's blog from Cape Denison in Antarctica's Commonwealth Bay. Australian polar explorer and geologist Douglas Mawson led two expeditions to Antarctica in the early 1900s, on the first one... |
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| War of 1812 | |
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| Prince de Neufchatel - War of 1812 |
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· 01/09/2010 5:08:19 AM PST · · Posted by Jacquerie · · 4 replies · 185+ views · · American Privateer · · unknown · · various · |
The Prince de Neufchatel Adam and Noah Brown's Privateer Schooner -- Built at New York in 1813 this ship was one of the fastest and most successful ships of the War of 1812 (6 prizes in 6 days in the English Channel (1814); chased 17 times by men-of-war that summer, but outran them every time). A large schooner (110' 8", 33.7m length on deck), she was typical in body plan of the American privateers. Very highly thought of by her country (she changed owners in 1814 for $21,000) as well as her enemies. When finally taken, the British copied her. The... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Our Founding Fathers spirit |
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· 01/03/2010 1:51:22 PM PST · · Posted by syc1959 · · 3 replies · 120+ views · · syc1959 · · Jan 3, 2010 · · syc1959 · |
In the spirit of our Founding Fathers let us recall the words of Israel Putnam. "Patriot, remember the heritages received from your forefathers and predecessors. Protect and perpetuate them for future generations of your countrymen." To those that don't know Israel Putnam, Israel Putnam was born in Salem Village (now Danvers), Mass. to a prosperous farming family. On April 20, 1775, when Putnam received news of the Battle of Lexington that started the day before, he left his plow in the field and rode one hundred miles in eighteen hours, reaching Cambridge the next day, to offer his services to... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| John Dewey and the Philosophical Refounding of America |
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· 01/08/2010 4:45:00 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 15 replies · 313+ views · · National Review Online · · December 31, 2009 · · Tiffany Jones Miller · |
The "progressive" label is back in vogue; politicians of the Left routinely use it to describe themselves, hoping to avoid the radical connotations associated with being "liberal" in the post-Reagan era. The irony in this is manifold, especially because the aim of the movement to which the name refers, the late-19th- and early-20th-century progressive movement, was anything but moderate. If the progressive label seems less radical today, it is only because progressivism is less well known than its liberal progeny. It was initially an academic phenomenon far removed from American politics. Particularly in the post-Civil... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Pius XII was no saint |
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· 01/03/2010 11:00:10 AM PST · · Posted by Gamecock · · 337 replies · 3,138+ views · · Ottawa Citizen · · January 2, 2010 · · Robert S. Wistrich · |
Ten years ago, on a cold winter morning in New York City, the Catholic-Jewish Historical Commission, established to investigate Pope Pius XII's response to the Holocaust, met for the first time to discuss its future work. I was the only Israeli historian among the six scholars (three Catholics and three Jews) designated by the Vatican and leading Jewish organizations to study this hotly contested issue. A little under two years later, the project was abandoned as a result of the Holy See's unwillingness to release materials from its own archives that could help clarify issues that our team of scholars... |
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| end of digest #286 20100109 | |
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