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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #300 Saturday, April 17, 2010 |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Brain Parts Found in Ancient Human Ancestor [ Australopithecus sediba ] |
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· 04/14/2010 7:55:39 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · 353+ views · · Discovery News · · Monday, April 12, 2010 · · Jennifer Viegas · |
Remains of a 1.9-million-year-old human ancestor are so well preserved that they may contain a remnant of the male individual's brain, according to the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France, where the remains were recently examined. While DNA is very fragile and deteriorates over time, the discovery opens up the remote possibility that soft tissue with preserved DNA still exists in the prehistoric hominid, which could hold an important place on the human family tree. The examination also turned up what seemed to be fossilized insect eggs, according to scientists. They said larvae from the eggs could have fed... |
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| "Key" Human Ancestor Found: Fossils Link Apes, First Humans? |
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· 04/11/2010 1:38:48 PM PDT · · Posted by valkyry1 · · 103 replies · · 862+ views · · National Geographic News · · April 8, 2010 · · Ker Than · |
Identified via two-million-year-old fossils, a new human ancestor dubbed Australopithecus sediba may be the "key transitional species" between the apelike australopithecines -- and the first Homo, or human, species, according to a new study. |
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| Don't Know Much About Promiscuity | |
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| MU researcher compiles evidence in support of Darwin's theory of sexual selection |
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· 04/14/2010 8:25:34 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · 185+ views · · Eurekalert · · Tuesday, April 13, 2010 · · Kelsey Jackson, U of Mo Columbia · |
...in a much expanded update of his book, Male, Female: The Evolution of Human Sex Differences, a University of Missouri researcher has compiled research that shows how Darwin's sexual selection is the best explanation of the differences between women and men including from infancy, relationships with friends, mate choices, to brain and cognition. The MU researcher also explains how the expression of these differences can vary across cultures and historical periods. "Choosing a mate is one of the most important decisions made in one's lifetime and one of Darwin's core components of sexual selection," said David Geary, author and Curators'... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Domesticated cats hail from Turkey, research suggests |
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· 03/28/2010 9:44:52 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 41 replies · · 914+ views · · roanoke · · March 28, 2010 · · Jill Bowen · |
In what part of the world were cats first found? And how did the different breeds arise? Cats were first domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the area known as the Fertile Crescent. This area stretches from Turkey to Northern Africa and includes Iran, Iraq and Egypt. Research data from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis, where cat genetics are studied, suggests that Turkey is one of the sites of origin for the domestication of cats. Cats started living close to people when people ceased being nomadic herders and became farmers raising livestock and crops.... |
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| Egypt | |
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| 'Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs' coming to Discovery Times Square Exposition |
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· 04/08/2010 8:25:55 AM PDT · · Posted by mentor2k · · 22 replies · · 422+ views · · New York Daily News · · March 24, 2010 · · Erica Pearson · |
Get ready to walk like an Egyptian - King Tut is on his way back to the Big Apple. Tickets went on sale Tuesday for an exhibit of artifacts from the boy pharaoh's tomb, opening April 23 at the Discovery Times Square Exposition. To mark the occasion, former Mayor Ed Koch welcomed a 25-feet-tall, black-and-gold statue of the jackal-headed god Anubis, which floated on a barge past the Statue of Liberty to arrive at the South Street Seaport. King Tut was a huge hit the last time he was here, bringing 1.8 million visitors to the Metropolitan Museum of Art... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Roman-era mummy found in Egyptian oasis |
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· 04/12/2010 1:53:20 PM PDT · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 11 replies · · 472+ views · · AP on Yahoo · · 4/12/10 · · Diaa Hadid - ap · |
CAIRO -- Egyptian archaeologists discovered an intricately carved plaster sarcophagus portraying a wide-eyed woman dressed in a tunic in a newly uncovered complex of tombs at a remote desert oasis, Egypt's antiquities department announced Monday. It is the first Roman-style mummy found in Bahariya Oasis some 186 miles (300 kilometers) southwest of Cairo, said archaeologist Mahmoud Afifi, who led the dig. The find was part of a cemetery dating back to the Greco-Roman period containing 14 tombs. "It is a unique find," he told The Associated Press, confirming that initial examinations indicate a mummy is inside the coffin. The carved... |
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| Archaeologists discover a Roman-era mummy |
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· 04/14/2010 12:58:49 AM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 16 replies · · 393+ views · · CNN · · April 13, 2010 · · Stephanie Goldberg · |
A Roman-era mummy was recently unearthed in a Bahariya Oasis cemetery, about 190 miles southwest of Cairo. The 3-foot-tall female mummy was discovered by Egyptian archaeologists. The figure was found covered with plaster decorated to resemble Roman dress and jewelry, said Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities in a press release Monday. In addition to the female mummy, the Supreme Court of Antiquities said archaeologists found clay and glass vessels, coins, anthropoid masks and 14 Greco-Roman tombs. Director of Cairo and Giza Antiquities Mahmoud Affifi, the archaeologist who led the dig, said the tomb has a unique design with stairways and... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Deepest Volcanic Sea Vents Found; "Like Another World" - may harbor unknown creatures |
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· 04/12/2010 2:43:55 PM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 19 replies · · 857+ views · · nationalgeographic · · April 11, 2010 · · Brian Handwerk · |
Three miles (five kilometers) below the surface of the Caribbean Sea (map), great volcanic chimneys gush subterranean water hot enough to melt lead. Found via robotic submersibles on April 6, these two-story-tall "black smokers" are the world's deepest known hydrothermal vents, scientists announced from aboard a research ship Sunday. "It was like wandering across the surface of another world," geochemist Bramley Murton, speaking in a press statement, said of steering a submersible around the record-breaking volcanic vents. "The rainbow hues of the mineral spires and the fluorescent blues of the microbial mats covering them were like nothing I had ever... |
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| Hey There Little Reptile | |
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| Giant lizard species discovered in the Philippines (6.5 feet long) |
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· 04/07/2010 2:26:10 PM PDT · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 19 replies · · 734+ views · · BBC News · · April 7, 2010 · · Matt Walker · |
A new species of giant lizard has been discovered in the Philippines. The 2m-long reptile is a monitor lizard, the group to which the world's longest and largest lizards belong. The monitor, described as spectacular by the scientists who found it, lives in forests covering the Sierra Madre mountains in the north of the country. The striking reptile has bright yellow, blue and green skin, and survives on a diet of just fruit, yet until now it has escaped the eyes of biologists. "It is an incredible animal," says Dr Rafe Brown, one of the scientists who describe the new... |
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| New Giant Lizard Discovery "an Unprecedented Surprise" |
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· 04/11/2010 8:37:03 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 46 replies · · 2,324+ views · · nationalgeographic · · April 7, 2010 · · James Owen · |
It has a double penis, is as long as a tall human, and lives in a heavily populated area of the Philippines. Yet somehow the giant lizard Varanus bitatawa has gone undetected by science until now. Long known to Filipino tribal hunters, the monitor lizard was identified as a new species in 2009 via its DNA, scale pattern, size, and peculiar penis, a new study says. At about six and a half feet (two meters) long, the new lizard species is closely related to the world's largest living lizard, the Komodo dragon. Unlike the Komodo, though, Varanus bitatawa has evolved... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Ancient Thick-shelled Turtle Discovered in Coal Mine |
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· 04/09/2010 7:30:05 PM PDT · · Posted by cajuncow · · 24 replies · · 448+ views · · livescience · · 4-9-10 · · Rachael Rettner · |
A new fossil turtle species discovered in South America boasts quite a bulky shell -- about as thick as your average high-school textbook. The shell, about 3.3 feet (1 meter) across and 1.4 inches (3.5 centimeters) thick, might have protected the turtle against attacks from large crocodile-like animals as well as the giant Titanoboa, the world's largest snake (about 45-feet long), which would have shared this turtle's neighborhood around 60 million years ago, the researchers say. The newly identified species, called Cerrejonemys wayuunaiki and discovered in the Cerrejón coal mine in Columbia, was the ancestor to one of the most... |
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| The Phoenicians | |
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| Hannibal's real Alpine trunk road to Rome is revealed |
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· 04/14/2010 8:06:01 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · 508+ views · · The Times · · February 17, 2010 · · Norman Hammond · |
From the Col du Mont Cenis in the north to the Col Agnel 35 miles (60km) almost due south of it three approach routes have been argued for. In the most recent study, Dr William Mahaney, a geomorphologist, and his colleagues have looked at the evidence from Classical sources. "As documented by Polybius and Livy in the ancient literature, Hannibal's army was blocked by a two-tier rockfall on the lee side of the Alps, a rubble sheet of considerable volume," they note in the journal Archaeometry. "The only such two-tier landform lies below the Col de la Traversette, 2,600... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Mummified Baboons in British Museum May Reveal Location of the Land of Punt |
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· 04/14/2010 8:17:08 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · 300+ views · · The Heritage Key · · Monday, April 12, 2010 · · Owen Jarus · |
To solve the mystery of where Punt was, a team of scientists is turning to two mummified baboons in the British Museum... One was found at Thebes and the other in the Valley of the Kings. The team is conducting oxygen isotope tests on the preserved hairs of the baboons. Oxygen isotopes act as a 'signal' that can tell scientists where an animal is from... To aid in narrowing down the location of Punt the team is also performing oxygen isotope tests on samples of modern day baboons from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Uganda and Mozambique. If the oxygen isotope... |
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| Mummified Baboons in British Museum May Reveal Location of the Land of Punt |
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· 04/15/2010 1:35:23 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 11 replies · · 460+ views · · Heritage Key · · 12 April 2010 · · Owen Jarus · |
Throughout their history the ancient Egyptians recorded making voyages to a place called the 'Land of Punt'. To the Egyptians it was a far-off source of exotic animals and valuable goods. From there they brought back perfumes, panther skins, electrum, and, yes, live baboons to keep as pets. The voyages started as early as the Old Kingdom, ca. 4,500 years ago, and continued until just after the collapse of the New Kingdom 3,000 years ago. Egyptologists have long argued about the location of Punt. The presence of perfumes suggests that it was located somewhere in Arabia, such as Yemen. However... |
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
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| "Dealing a Mortal Blow" to the Medieval Warm Period |
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· 04/08/2010 10:25:02 PM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 29 replies · · 1,064+ views · · climateaudit.org · · April 8, 2010 · · Steve McIntyre · |
There has been a considerable amount of speculation over the past few years about which "leading" climate scientist told David Deming that we have to "get rid of" the Medieval Warm Period, including speculation (e.g. ukweatherworld) that it was Jonathan Overpeck (recently one of two Coordinating Lead Authors of AR4 chapter 6). While the identity of Deming's correspondent remains uncertain, a Climategate letter from January 13. 2005, written as an instruction from Overpeck as Coordinating Lead Author to IPCC Lead Authors Briffa and Osborn (cc Jansen, Masson-Delmotte), states that Overpeck wants to "deal a mortal blow" to the MWP (and... |
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| Climate | |
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| 422,700 years of temperature data [Vostok Ice Core] |
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· 04/09/2010 1:44:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SloopJohnB · · 20 replies · · 1,177+ views · · Daily Bayonet · · March 29, 2010 · · Sophiaalbertina · |
[Snip]...Why all these concerted efforts? Very simple, the very existence of the medieval warming period (not to speak of the Roman Warming Period), made mockery of their Global Warming Hysteria. How can you blame the humans for this when the temperature was much higher and have risen faster during this medieval period. So it officially "disappeared". |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| Stalagmite reveals carbon footprint of early Native Americans |
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· 04/15/2010 7:24:19 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 40 replies · · 481+ views · · Ohio University · · Apr 15, 2010 · · Unknown · |
ATHENS, Ohio (April 15, 2010) -- A new study led by Ohio University scientists suggests that early Native Americans left a bigger carbon footprint than previously thought, providing more evidence that humans impacted global climate long before the modern industrial era. Chemical analysis of a stalagmite found in the mountainous Buckeye Creek basin of West Virginia suggests that native people contributed a significant level of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through land use practices. The early Native Americans burned trees to actively manage the forests to yield the nuts and fruit that were a large part of their diets. "They... |
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| Ancient Americans took cold snap in their stride |
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· 04/12/2010 7:40:42 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 12 replies · · 355+ views · · Springer · · Apr 12, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Study suggests that Ice Age climate change did not pose significant challenges to first Americans Paleoindian groups* occupied North America throughout the Younger Dryas interval, which saw a rapid return to glacial conditions approximately 11,000 years ago. Until now, it has been assumed that cooling temperatures and their impact on communities posed significant adaptive challenges to those groups. David Meltzer from the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, USA, and Vance Holliday from the University of Arizona in Tucson, USA, suggest otherwise in their review of climatic and environmental records from this time period in continental North America, published in Springer's... |
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| Early America | |
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| Volunteers Needed to Rig Half Moon (Replica of Henry Hudson's Ship) |
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· 04/11/2010 1:49:15 PM PDT · · Posted by Tennessee Nana · · 4 replies · · 197+ views · · EMail · · April 10, 2010 · · Jay Pocius · |
Volunteers Needed to Rig Half Moon, April 17/18 & 24/25 This is our first email sent through Constant Comment. It is also the first HTML (web-like) email for us. If you would prefer to change your copy back to "plain text" or modify your email address, scroll to the bottom and click 'update profile.' 1. Help Rig Half Moon, Weekends in April 17/18 & 24/25 Volunteer crew are needed the weekends of April 17/18 and 24/25 to help rig the Half Moon for seasonal sailing operations. Jennifer Reilly will manage the re-rig, and assign training and jobs according to ship... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| British warship Paul Revere eluded resurfaces in Cape Cod |
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· 04/10/2010 3:42:13 PM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 52 replies · · 1,461+ views · · bostonherald · |
PROVINCETOWN - The wreck of the British warship that Paul Revere eluded at the start of his famous ride has resurfaced in Cape Cod's shifting sands. About a dozen timbers from the HMS Somerset III were spotted on a Provincetown beach after erosion from recent storms. |
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| British warship Somerset resurfaces off Cape Cod |
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· 04/12/2010 3:08:19 PM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 32 replies · · 820+ views · · Boston Globe · · 11 April 2010 · · Stefanie Geisler · |
Officials order 3-D rendering of sunken boat The wreck of the British warship HMS Somerset III, which was guarding Boston Harbor the night Paul Revere slipped by on his legendary journey to Lexington in 1775, has resurfaced in the shifting sands off Cape Cod. Federal park officials, saying they may have only a limited window of opportunity, are seizing the moment and having the wreck "digitally preserved'' using three-dimensional imaging technology. "We know the wreck is going to disappear again under the sand, and it may not resurface again in our lifetimes,'' said William P. Burke, the historian at the... |
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| The British Are Back: A Revolutionary War Shipwreck Re-emerges |
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· 04/14/2010 5:33:09 AM PDT · · Posted by bamahead · · 12 replies · · 843+ views · · Yahoo! · · April 13, 2010 · · Vera H-C Chan · |
Shiver me timbers, the warship HMS Somerset III is back. The last time the British man-of-war sailed the seas was during the Revolutionary War. The ship showed up off the Massachusetts coast to rescue British soldiers after the battles at Lexington and Concord and provide support during the Battle of Bunker Hill. A tangle with French warships and a gale storm spelled doom for the warship in 1778, when it crashed on the perilous Peaked Hill sand bars, responsible for taking many a sailor's life. Now, the winter storms have again uncovered the wreckage that played a poetic role in... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Lincoln is shot |
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· 04/14/2010 5:54:59 AM PDT · · Posted by central_va · · 214 replies · · 1,668+ views · · history channel · · 4/15/2010 · · history channel · |
On this day in 1865, John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally shoots President Abraham Lincoln at a play at Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, effectively ending the American Civil War. Booth, a Maryland native born in 1838, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president... |
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| 1913 Abraham Lincoln film found in NH barn cleanup (30-minute film, "When Lincoln Paid") |
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· 04/13/2010 5:07:50 PM PDT · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 31 replies · · 1,229+ views · · AP on Yahoo · · 4/13/10 · · Kathy McCormack - ap · |
CONCORD, N.H. -- In a tale celebrating the romance of movies, a contractor cleaning out an old New Hampshire barn destined for demolition found seven reels of nitrate film inside, including the only known copy of a 1913 silent film about Abraham Lincoln. "When Lincoln Paid," a 30-minute film about the mother of a dead Union soldier asking Lincoln to pardon a Confederate soldier whom she had initially turned in, stars the brother of John Ford, director of "The Grapes of Wrath," "The Quiet Man," and other classics. "I was up in the attic space, and shoved away over in... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| DNA On Letters To Mom Confirms ID Of Sailor Killed At Pearl Harbor In '41 |
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· 04/15/2010 1:12:31 AM PDT · · Posted by Palter · · 14 replies · · 314+ views · · NPR · · 13 April 2010 · · William Cole · |
"Sixty-eight years after he was killed on Dec. 7, 1941," The Honolulu Advertiser writes, DNA lifted from envelopes that 18-year-old sailor Gerald Lehman licked when he sent letters home to his mother have helped identify his remains. Now, the remains will be brought from Hawaii back to Michigan. His mother died in 2005. Her daughter, Peggy Germain, said it was the woman's "dearest wish" to have Lehman's body brought home for burial. It was Germain's research that led to the discovery that Lehman's remains had been buried with others in Hawaii -- and eventually to the DNA tests that confirmed... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| Patrick Henry descendants among Tea Party activists, as movement assesses first year gains, losses |
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· 04/14/2010 7:57:05 PM PDT · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 4 replies · · 325+ views · · Washington Examiner · · April 14, 2010 · · Mark Tapscott · |
Therese Cooper is an eighth-generation descendant of Revolutionary War leader and orator Patrick Henry of Virginia, and she's convinced that her ancestor would today be doing the same thing she is, organizing tea parties. "If Patrick Henry were alive," Cooper told New Mexico Watchdog's Jim Scarantino, "he would be coordinating a Tea Party today." Cooper and her daughter Emily are among New Mexico's original Tea Party organizers, according to Scarantino. "I remember my great-grandmother talking about our family history," Emily told Scarantino. "I am very proud. Patrick Henry gave everything to fight for his freedom. Why should it be any... |
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| Natural World | |
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| Vintage Views of Natural Bridge |
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· 04/10/2010 6:01:52 AM PDT · · Posted by jay1949 · · 25 replies · · 742+ views · · Backcountry Notes · · April 10, 2010 · · Jay Henderson · |
As isolated as the Virginia Backcountry was from the coastal colonies, travelers were eager to tour and enjoy the wild country. Among the early tourists was Thomas Jefferson, who trekked across Rockfish Gap in August of 1767 and found himself entranced by the Natural Bridge. [Eight 19th-century paintings and engravings of Natural Bridge] |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Freemasonry code cracked at Knox College |
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· 04/11/2010 1:01:19 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 44 replies · · 1,494+ views · · The Journal Star · · Apr 10, 2010 · · Claire Howard · |
Symbolism that eluded detection for more than 150 years has become a modern-day Knox College version of "The DaVinci Code." Philosophy professor Lance Factor recounts how he cracked the code and deciphered the messages in his new book, "Chapel in the Sky: Knox College's Old Main and Its Masonic Architect" published by Northern Illinois University Press. Just months after hitting store shelves, the book has gone into its second printing. "We felt positive about this book, but we didn't expect we'd go into the second printing so fast," said Linda Manning, assistant director of marketing and sales manager at Northern... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Holy Shroud was hidden from Hitler's grasp in Benedictine Abbey (here are the details) |
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· 04/08/2010 3:02:12 PM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 14 replies · · 605+ views · · cna · · April 8, 2010 · |
An image of the Shroud of Turin. Rome, Italy, Apr 8, 2010 / 10:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Holy Shroud was transferred from Turin during World War II to keep it out of reach of Adolph Hitler, according to a Benedictine priest in a southern Italian abbey. Monks in Avellino, Italy stored the relic until 1946 "officially to protect it from bombs, in reality to hide it from the Fuhrer, who was obsessed with it," the monk said. Sensing the dangers posed by German officials' interest in the Shroud during a visit from Hitler to Italy in 1938, the... |
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| Shroud of Turin on display for the first time in Decade |
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· 04/10/2010 4:31:10 AM PDT · · Posted by Freedom'sWorthIt · · 45 replies · · 673+ views · · Yahoo News · · April 10. 2010 · · AFP · |
TURIN, Italy (AFP) - The Shroud of Turin, believed by many to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, will go on public display here Saturday for the first time in a decade. Some two million people are expected to view one of the most revered relics in Christendom -- and among the most disputed -- over the next six weeks in this northern Italian city. Hundreds of journalists and photographers were offered a first chance to view the cloth as the city finalised preparations for the onslaught of visitors. A large area around the Turin cathedral has been cordoned... |
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| end of digest #300 20100417 | |
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· Saturday, April 17, 2010 · 30 topics · 2492739 to 2492721 · 748 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 300th issue. How did *that* happen? Anyway, last week I used the header "Egypt" twice, my mummy pointed out the error. It was another knockout week for topics, again, some went unposted, and I've had no apparent takers for the seven from last issue, which were numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7. If you don't want to post 'em, feel free to click on the links and read them. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #301 Saturday, April 24, 2010 |
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| When Cousins Marry | |
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| Third Cousins Have Greatest Number Of Offspring, Data From Iceland Shows |
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· 02/07/2008 5:39:12 PM PST · · Posted by blam · · 103 replies · 2,409+ views · · Science Daily · · 2-8-2008 · · deCODE genetics. · |
Third Cousins Have Greatest Number Of Offspring, Data From Iceland Shows ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2008) -- DeCODE scientists have established a substantial and consistent positive correlation between the kinship of couples and the number of children and grandchildren they have. The study, which analyzes more than 200 years of deCODE's comprehensive define genealogical data on the population of Iceland, shows that couples related at the level of third cousins have the greatest number of offspring. For example, for women born between 1800 and 1824, those with a mate related at the level of a third cousin had an average of... |
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
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| Archeology: When did the First Settlers Come to Iceland? |
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· 04/17/2010 4:49:07 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 24 replies · 451+ views · · icelandreview.com · · April 4, 2010 · |
One of the things that makes Iceland unique in Europe is the fact that Icelanders know the year the first settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, came to Iceland from Norway. The Icelandic script, Íslendingabók (Book of Icelanders), written by Ari the wise, tells of the first men coming to Iceland on explorations. Three expeditions came to Iceland, but the first men who came to Iceland to live there permanently were Ingólfur and Hjörleifur. The two came to Iceland in 874. Hjörleifur was killed by his slaves, which only left Ingólfur and his wife Hallgerdur Fródadóttir. They settled in Reykjavík, now the capital... |
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| Archeology: When did the First Settlers Come to Iceland? [the Irish] |
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· 04/17/2010 5:12:42 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · 514+ views · · Iceland Review · · April 5, 2010 · · unattributed · |
One of the things that makes Iceland unique in Europe is the fact that Icelanders know the year the first settler, Ingólfur Arnarson, came to Iceland from Norway. The Icelandic script, Íslendingabók (Book of Icelanders), written by Ari the wise, tells of the first men coming to Iceland on explorations. Three expeditions came to Iceland, but the first men who came to Iceland to live there permanently were Ingólfur and Hjörleifur. The two came to Iceland in 874. Hjörleifur was killed by his slaves, which only left Ingólfur and his wife Hallgerdur Fródadóttir. They settled in Reykjavík, now the capital... |
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| Catastrophism and Astronomy | |
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| Holy Cow, Look What Happened When Eyjafjallajökull Erupted In 1812 |
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· 04/16/2010 7:58:58 AM PDT · · Posted by blam · · 104 replies · 4,012+ views · · The Business Insider · · 4-16-2010 · · Gregory White · |
The last time Eyjafjallajökull blew its top the eruption lasted for two years, spreading smoke and ash over Iceland causing significant damage. * The last time Eyjafjallajökull erupted, it lasted 2 years stretching from 1821-1823. It also erupted in 920 and 1612. * The 1821 eruption spread fluoride across iceland, damaging livestock and human well-being. Glacial flooding also resulted from the eruption. * Eyjafjallajökull's eruption usually precedes an eruption for another Icelandic volcano called Katla, as it did in 1823. Katla's eruptions are... |
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| How an Icelandic volcano helped spark the French Revolution |
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· 04/20/2010 4:55:46 PM PDT · · Posted by Kartographer · · 37 replies · 838+ views · · guardian.co.uk · · 4/15/10 · · Greg Neale · |
Just over 200 years ago an Icelandic volcano erupted with catastrophic consequences for weather, agriculture and transport across the northern hemisphere -- and helped trigger the French revolution. The Laki volcanic fissure in southern Iceland erupted over an eight-month period from 8 June 1783 to February 1784, spewing lava and poisonous gases that devastated the island's agriculture, killing much of the livestock. It is estimated that perhapsa quarter of Iceland's population died through the ensuing famine. Then, as now, there were more wide-ranging impacts. In Norway, the Netherlands, the British Isles, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, in North America and even... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Primate Fossil More Than 11 Million Years Old Discovered [Spain] |
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· 04/22/2010 9:32:34 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · 323+ views · · ScienceDaily · · April 23, 2010 · · FECYT via Eurekalert · |
Catalan researchers have discovered in the rubbish dump of Can Mata in the Valles-Penedes basin (Catalonia) a new species of Pliopithecus primate, considered an extinct family of primitive Catarrhini primates (or "Old World monkeys"). The fragments of jaw and molars found in this large site demonstrate that Pliopithecus canmatensis belongs to this group, which includes the first Catarrhini that dispersed from Africa to Eurasia. Named Pliopithecus canmatensis, in honour of the place they were discovered in Catalonia, the new fossil species sheds light on the evolution of the superfamily of the Pliopithecoidea, primates that include various genera of basal Catarrhini,... |
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| Neandertals / Neanderthals | |
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| Neanderthals may have interbred with humans |
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· 04/22/2010 5:12:55 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 71 replies · 1,361+ views · · Nature News · · 4-20-10 · · Rex Dalton · |
Genetic data points to ancient liaisons between species. Archaic humans such as Neanderthals may be gone but they're not forgotten -- at least not in the human genome. A genetic analysis of nearly 2,000 people from around the world indicates that such extinct species interbred with the ancestors of modern humans twice, leaving their genes within the DNA of people today. The discovery, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on 17 April, adds important new details to the evolutionary history of the human species. And it may help explain the... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Lice hang ancient date on first clothes: Genetic analysis puts origin at 190,000 years ago |
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· 04/23/2010 6:41:29 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 41 replies · 462+ views · · Science News · · May 8th, 2010 · · Bruce Bower · |
Using DNA to trace the evolutionary split between head and body lice, researchers conclude that body lice first came on the scene approximately 190,000 years ago. And that shift, the scientists propose, followed soon after people first began wearing clothing... sheds light on a poorly understood cultural development that allowed people to settle in northern, cold regions, said Andrew Kitchen of Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Armed with little direct evidence, scientists had previously estimated that clothing originated anywhere from around 1 million to 40,000 years ago. An earlier analysis of mitochondrial DNA from the two modern types of... |
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| Gene Study Identifies 5 Main Human Populations |
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· 04/23/2010 6:58:06 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 31 replies · 851+ views · · New York Times · · December 20, 2002 · · Nicholas Wade · |
Scientists studying the DNA of 52 human groups from around the world have concluded that people belong to five principal groups corresponding to the major geographical regions of the world: Africa, Europe, Asia, Melanesia and the Americas. The study, based on scans of the whole human genome, is the most thorough to look for patterns corresponding to major geographical regions. These regions broadly correspond with popular notions of race, the researchers said in interviews. The researchers did not analyze genes but rather short segments of DNA known as markers, similar to those used in DNA fingerprinting tests, that have no... |
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| Saluting the discoverers of DNA |
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· 04/24/2003 4:23:13 AM PDT · · Posted by RJCogburn · · 28 replies · 2,011+ views · · Boston Globe · · 4/24/03 · · Kevin Davies · |
FIFTY YEARS AGO tomorrow, the British science magazine Nature published one of the most astounding scientific reports in history. James Watson and Francis Crick impudently informed the world that they had cracked the molecular structure of the salt of deoxyribosenucleic acid -- better known as DNA. The report included one simple black and white illustration, sketched by Crick's wife, of what has since become universally known as the double helix. The architecture of DNA resembles a twisted ladder that contains some 3 billion rungs labeled in a simple four-letter alphabet -- A, C, G and T -- that spells out the language of life. |
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| 5, 4, 3... | |
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| Is the Mysterious Siberian "X-Woman" a New Hominid Species? |
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· 03/25/2010 9:09:33 AM PDT · · Posted by 2ndDivisionVet · · 28 replies · 812+ views · · Discover Magazine · · March 25, 2010 · · Smriti Rao · |
In 2008, archeologists working at the Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains discovered a tiny piece of a finger bone, believed to be a pinky, buried with ornaments in the cave. Scientists extracted the mitochondrial DNA (genetic material from the mother's side) from the ancient bone and checked to see if its genetic code matched with the other two known forms of early hominids -- Neanderthals and the ancestors of modern humans. What they found was a real surprise. The team, led by geneticist Svaante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute, discovered that the mtDNA from the finger bone matched neither -- suggesting there... |
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| Swingin' Ancestors | |
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| Ancient Hominids Had Human-Like Grip |
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· 04/22/2010 7:46:32 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · 254+ views · · Discovery News · · Monday, April 19, 2010 · · Bruce Bower, Science News · |
An upright gait and a relatively sophisticated ability to manipulate objects apparently evolved in tandem among the earliest hominids at least 6 million years ago, said Sergio Almécija of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. That's well before the earliest evidence of stone toolmaking, about 2.6 million years ago, arguing against the idea that fine motor skills for toolmaking drove the evolution of opposable thumbs. Almécija and his colleagues studied a bone from the tip of a thumb belonging to Orrorin tugenensis. At an estimated 6 million years old, Orrorin is the second oldest hominid genus. A more recently identified... |
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| Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho | |
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| Hobbit debate goes out on some limbs |
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· 04/23/2010 11:21:30 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 12 replies · 264+ views · · ScienceNews · · May 8, 2010 · · Bruce Bower · |
Two fossil hobbits have given what's left of their arms and legs to science. That wasn't enough, though, to quell debate over hobbits' evolutionary status at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists on April 17. Since 2004, the discoverers of unusual "hobbit" fossils on the Indonesian island of Flores have attributed their find to a pint-sized species, Homo floresiensis, that lived there from 95,000 to 17,000 years ago. These researchers also suspect, on the basis of hobbit anatomy and recent stone tool discoveries on Flores, that H. floresiensis evolved from a currently unknown hominid species that... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| 'Java Man' takes age to extremes [ H. erectus 550,000 yrs BP? ] |
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· 04/17/2010 6:46:15 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 21 replies · 446+ views · · Science News · · Friday, April 16th, 2010 · · Bruce Bower · |
New age estimates for Homo erectus fossils on the Indonesian island of Java have physical anthropologists scratching their crania. After convincing most of their colleagues that H. erectus may have persisted on the Indonesian island of Java as recently as 30,000 years ago -- late enough to have coexisted in Asia with modern humans for more than 100,000 years -- anthropologists presented new analyses April 14 suggesting the fossils in question may actually predate Homo sapiens by hundreds of thousands of years. It all depends which radiometric method you use to assess the fossils' age, New York University anthropologist Susan... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Nanostructure of 5,000-year-old mummy skin reveals insight into mummification process [Oetzi] |
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· 04/22/2010 9:04:16 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 17 replies · 343+ views · · PhyOrg · · April 20, 2010 · · Lisa Zyga · |
sing cutting-edge microscopy techniques, researchers have gained insight into how human mummies can be extremely well-preserved for thousands of years. A team of scientists from Germany and Italy has investigated skin samples from Europe's oldest natural mummy, the 5,300-year-old "Iceman" who was buried in a glacier shortly after death in the Otzal Alps between Italy and Austria. The researchers found that the underlying structure of the mummy's skin is largely unaltered compared with the skin of a modern living human, likely maintaining its protective function due to dehydration... Since the Iceman's discovery, investigations using optical and scanning electron microscopes have... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Egyptian Official Angry that King Tut is not at the Met: Calls Times Square Exhibition Space a 'Hole' |
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· 04/23/2010 9:46:24 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 37 replies · 451+ views · · DNAinfo · · April 22, 2010 · · Tara Kyle · |
Dr. Zahi Hawass, the secretary general for Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities told a press conference Wednesday that hosting the Tutankhamun's tomb at the Discover Time Square Exposition cheapened the exhibition. "This priceless artifact should be at the Met, not at this hole," Hawass said. In an embarassing preview for the exhibition, Hawass called Arts and Exhibitions International President John Norman to the stage and demanded he "answer the question. Why is King Tut not at the Met?" Norman responded by saying then when plans to bring Tut back to New York began over five years ago, he met with... |
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| Epigraphy and Language | |
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| Hoard of 2,000-Year-Old Coins Found in Egypt |
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· 04/23/2010 8:17:29 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · 597+ views · · Discovery News · · Thursday, April 22, 2010 · · Associated Press · |
Archaeologists unearthed 383 bronze coins dating back to King Ptolemy III who ruled Egypt in the 3rd century B.C. and was an ancestor of the famed Cleopatra, Egypt's antiquities authority announced Wednesday... |
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| Greece | |
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| 'Ancient IKEA building' discovered by Italian archaeologists |
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· 04/22/2010 8:02:47 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · 415+ views · · Times Online · · April 22, 2010 · · Richard Owen, Rome · |
Massimo Osanna, head of archaeology at Basilica University, said that the team working at Torre Satriano near Potenza in what was once Magna Graecia had unearthed a sloping roof with red and black decorations, with "masculine" and "feminine" components inscribed with detailed directions on how they slotted together. Professor Christopher Smith, director of the British School at Rome, said that the discovery was "the clearest example yet found of mason's marks of the time. It looks as if someone was instructing others how to mass-produce components and put them together in this way"" he told The Times. Professor Osanna suggested... |
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| Parthenon yields clues to quake-proof design |
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· 04/22/2010 8:11:51 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · 383+ views · · Cosmos Magazine · · Monday, August 25, 2008 · · Agence France-Presse · |
Japanese scientists will next month look into seismic resistance secrets in the design of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon which has withstood scores of quakes. "The Parthenon had great resilience to earthquakes, as did most classical Greek temples," said Maria Ioannidou, the archaeologist in charge of conservation of the ancient Acropolis citadel where the Parthenon stands. "The ancient Greeks apparently had very good knowledge of quake behaviour and excellent construction quality," she added. Toshikazu Hanazato, a professor of engineering and an expert in post-quake reconstruction, at Japan's Mie University, heads the research team which is visiting Greece next month to study... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Serbia to boast heritage as birthplace of 18 Roman emperors |
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· 04/17/2010 7:15:16 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 15 replies · 350+ views · · Monsters and Critics · · Apr 3, 2010, · · Ksenija Prodanovic · |
Belgrade - The mention of Serbia usually brings to mind the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but rarely ever the Roman Empire - despite the fact that 18 Roman rulers, one fifth of all emperors, were born on its territory. With that in mind, archaeologist Miomir Korac has launched The Road of Roman Emperors in Serbia (Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae) - a project meant to combine dozens of antique places across the country into a 600-kilometre-long tourist itinerary. "This is perhaps the most important project in Serbia because it is a chance to show the country's pretty face and... |
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| Roman finds made during work on access road |
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· 04/17/2010 7:10:36 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 8 replies · 329+ views · · yourthanet.co.uk · · 31/03/2010 · |
KENT NEWS: Pieces of the past have been unearthed during the first stages of construction of the East Kent Access Road. Archaeologists have found artefacts dating from when the Romans inhabited Thanet, as well from other periods. The finds from the recent excavations were shown to isle residents at two roadshows from the Trust for Thanet Archaelogy over the weekend. The first took place at Margate library on Saturday, and the second at Westwood Cross on Sunday. Shoppers thronged around the stall outside Debenhams to look at what has been found so far. Pieces of Roman ceramics from the period... |
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| Navigation | |
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| Hundreds of rare Roman pots discovered by accident off Italy's coast by British research ship |
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· 04/18/2010 6:35:25 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 35 replies · 929+ views · · Daily Mail · · April 13th 2010 · · Reporter · |
A British underwater research team has discovered hundreds of rare Roman pots by accident, while trawling the wreckages of ships on the sea bed. The team had been using remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to scour modern wrecks for radioactive materials. They were amazed to come across the remains of a Roman galley which sank off the coast of Italy thousands of years ago... The crew from energy company Hallin Marine International, based in Aberdeen, found a number of ancient pots lying in the mud 1,640ft below the waves... the crew worked around the clock for two days to bring them... |
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| China | |
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| Archaeologists: Sea relics in Xisha too fragile |
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· 04/17/2010 7:07:33 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 7 replies · 281+ views · · chinadaily.com · · 2010-04-02 · · Zuo Likun · |
The archaeological dragnet sweeping across South China's Xisha archipelago has turned up over 50 underwater heritage sites, including several ancient trade boats, which have for decades been a tempting treasure coveted by antiques smugglers. Porcelain, iron and bronze wares dating to the South Song Dynasty (1127 -- 1279) were recovered in the emergency expedition, which kicked off last May. However, salvage rescue is a mixed blessing for the underwater antiques, whose fragility in seawaters renders preservation on the spot a far better choice. "The scope of underwater antiques around Xisha archipelago is enormously huge and far away from the land. It is... |
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| India | |
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| Deciphering the Indus script: challenges and some headway |
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· 04/18/2010 7:39:07 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · 365+ views · · The Hindu · · Thursday, April 15, 2010 · · Interview with Professor Asko Parpola · |
All those features of the Indus script which have been mentioned as proof for its not being a writing system, characterise also the Egyptian hieroglyphic script during its first 600 years of existence. For detailed counterarguments, see my papers at the website... The script is highly standardised; the signs are as a rule written in regular lines; there are hundreds of sign sequences which recur in the same order, often at many different sites; the preserved texts are mostly seal stones, and seals in other cultures usually have writing recording the name or title of the seal owner; and the... |
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| Indus Valley east theory challenged |
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· 04/17/2010 6:55:07 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 9 replies · 246+ views · · Telegraph India · · April 5, 2010 · · G.S. Mudur · |
A study of hundreds of ancient Indus Valley civilisation sites has revealed previously unsuspected patterns of growth and decline that challenge a long-standing idea of a solely eastward-moving wave of Indus urbanisation. Researchers at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences (IMS), Chennai, combined data from archaeology, radiocarbon dating, and river flows to study how settlements around the Indus Valley region had evolved from around 7000 BC till 1000 BC. Their analysis of 1,874 Indus region settlements has shown that the Indus urbanisation had three epicentres -- Mehrgarh in present-day Baluchistan, Gujarat, and sites along an ancient river called the Ghaggar-Hakra in... |
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| Peaceful Easy Feelin' | |
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| New tech sees dead people |
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· 04/17/2010 2:37:26 PM PDT · · Posted by Berlin_Freeper · · 28 replies · 928+ views · · msnbc.msn.com · · April 16, 2010 · · Eric Bland · |
A spooky sounding technology is finding old, unmarked graves. Using hyperspectral imaging, scientists from McGill University have found unmarked animal graves with special cameras that measure changes in the light coming from soil and plants. Hyperspectral imaging collects and processes light from across the electromagnetic spectrum, including visible light as well as ultraviolet and infrared light. The research could help police solve missing persons cases or reveal new mass graves from hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. "As soon as there is some decay you can see a difference," said Andre Costopoulos, a professor at McGill University developing new... |
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| Dinosaurs (et al) | |
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| This dinosaur had a Jersey attitude |
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· 04/18/2010 2:52:10 PM PDT · · Posted by Coleus · · 10 replies · 378+ views · · northjersey.com · · 04.13.10 · · Bill Ervolino · |
Gary Vecchiarelli is in love with a dinosaur. That may sound like a great premise for a Saturday morning cartoon show, but Vecchiarelli, a 33-year-old Boonton resident, is a real person, not some Barney Rubble wannabe. A paleontological field associate and graduate student at New Jersey City University, where he is completing his master's in geology and education, Vecchiarelli is also a man on a mission: to turn the 66.5-million-year-old Drypto-saurus, one of two Late Cretaceous-era dinosaurs known to have lived in what is now New Jersey, into a household name, right up there with Albert Einstein, Snooki Polizzi and... |
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| Hey There Little Reptile | |
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| Ancient treasure comes home: 200-million-year-old fossil back in N.J. |
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· 04/18/2010 2:47:00 PM PDT · · Posted by Coleus · · 10 replies · 392+ views · · star ledger · · 04.11.10 · · Brent Johnson · |
For millions of years, Tany laid buried under layers of rock in what is now Hudson County. She was unearthed in 1979 by a trio of amateur fossil hunters in an abandoned quarry: a rare, complete skeleton of a primitive reptile -- one that swam through waterways in the northeast as dinosaurs began to roam the planet. But in the decades since her discovery, Tany has been stored out of state, modestly displayed in the lobby of a New York research laboratory. Now, she's back home. The fossil's founders, Steven and Trini Stelz and James Leonard, recently donated the 200-million-year-old... |
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| Agriculture and Animal Husbandry | |
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| Mysterious Desert Lines Were Animal Traps [Negev and Sinai] |
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· 04/20/2010 9:10:50 PM PDT · · Posted by Enchante · · 12 replies · 773+ views · · Discovery.com · · April 20, 2010 · · Larry O'Hanlon · |
THE GIST: * A series of low, long walls are cleverly constructed traps that used the landscape. * Gazelle, ibexes, wild asses and other large herding animals were the targets. * No one is sure why the kites were abandoned. British RAF pilots in the early 20th century were the first to spot the strange kite-like lines on the deserts of Israel, Jordan and Egypt from the air and wonder about their origins. The lines are low, stone walls, usually found as angled pairs, that begin far apart and converge at circular pits. In some places in Jordan the lines... |
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| Megaliths and Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Do Dartmoor's ancient stones have link to Stonehenge? |
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· 04/19/2010 9:09:10 AM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 13 replies · 841+ views · · newscientist · · 14 April 2010 · · Linda Geddes · |
LITTERED across the hills of Dartmoor in Devon, southern England, around 80 rows and circles of stones stand sentinel in the wild landscape. Now, striking similarities between one of these monuments and Stonehenge, 180 kilometres to the east, suggest they may be the work of the same people. The row of nine stones on Cut Hill was discovered in 2004 on one of the highest, most remote hills of Dartmoor national park. "It is on easily the most spectacular hill on north Dartmoor," says Andrew Fleming, president of the Devon Archaeological Society. "If you were looking for a distant shrine... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Does archaeology support the Bible? |
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· 03/19/2010 8:34:02 PM PDT · · Posted by restornu · · 76 replies · 1,087+ views · · TruthOrTradition.com · · 2008 · |
The material evidence that archaeologists have discovered supports the Bible. Sadly, in the 1900s there was a great deal of archaeological work interpreted in a way that discredited the Bible. Of course, it has been said that archaeology "proves" the Bible, and this is not technically correct either. The Bible contains much information about God, the spiritual nature of the world, and the future of man that archaeology can never prove. The best archaeology can do is substantiate what the Bible says about the past, but the importance of that should not be understated. If, time after time, archaeology substantiates... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Searching for the Better Text: How errors crept into the Bible and what can be done to correct them |
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· 04/23/2010 7:35:06 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · 563+ views · · Biblical Archaeology Review · · April 2010 · · Harvey Minkoff · |
In some cases the traditional text is clearly superior, but in others the version in the scrolls is better. Thanks to the scrolls, more and more textual problems in the Hebrew Bible are being resolved. The notes in newer Bible translations list variant readings from the scrolls, and in some cases, the translations incorporate these readings in the text as the preferred reading. No one has ever seriously suggested that the Dead Sea Scrolls contain anything like an eleventh commandment; but the scrolls do help clarify numerous difficult phrases in the Hebrew Bible, and for textual scholars that is more... |
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| Aramaic Gospels online |
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· 02/28/2004 8:29:38 PM PST · · Posted by djf · · 16 replies · 1,044+ views · · The Peshitta website · |
For those who are interested, there is a literal translation of the Aramaic Gospels (and Acts) online. Mattai, Marqus, Luqa, and Yukhanan. I have not compared it yet to my 1872 hardcopy of Murdocks Translation of The Syriac Testament(1851) and am unsure if they are the same source, as there are about 6 extant versions of the Aramaic text. You will need a frame compatible browser and Adobe Acrobat to read it, go to WWW.PESHITTA.ORG, and on the left frame, click on Interlinear to expand. It reads right to left. Here is a sample, The Lords prayer, Luqa 1: "Our... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Minuteman reenactor's forebear may have started the battle |
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· 04/19/2010 8:52:48 AM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 24 replies · 813+ views · · Boston.com · · April 19, 2010 · · David Filipov · |
LEXINGTON -- Like the other Minutemen in his company, Bill Poole will grab his musket, sling his cartridge box over his shoulder, and stride onto Lexington Green this morning to fight, and lose, the famed first skirmish between Patriot and Redcoat. But unlike his comrades in the annual reenactment, Poole will carry with him a piece of a 235-year-old mystery that still surrounds that momentous clash: the question of who fired the shot that sparked the opening volley of the Revolutionary War. Poole, 76, is the direct descendant of Ebenezer Locke, a man who, according to one account, fired the... |
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| Why Can't Old Media Get History Right Part 2: Boston Herald Muffs Rev War |
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· 04/20/2010 10:29:07 AM PDT · · Posted by Mobile Vulgus · · 4 replies · 352+ views · · Publius Forum · · 04/20/10 · · Warner Todd Huston · |
Last week I posted a deconstruction of the muffed WWII history as penned by NPR commentator Cokie Roberts. Today I have another example of muddled history in the Old Media. This one is misconstrued Revolutionary War history as published by the Boston Herald. Hard to believe that the Boston Herald, a paper that sits in the cradle of the Revolutionary War, can get Revolutionary War history wrong but such is the degraded state of the Old Media. In Lexington, Massachusetts on April 19, 2010, reenactors of the Rev War celebrated the 235th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington. The Boston... |
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| The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere |
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· 04/18/2010 9:02:34 PM PDT · · Posted by Oratam · · 46 replies · 631+ views · · A Wayside Inn · · April 19, 1860 · · Henry Wadsworth Longfellow · |
Paul Revere's Ride Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Listen my children and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-- One if by land, and two if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every... |
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| The Framers | |
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| President George Washington racks up $300,000 late fee for two Manhattan library books |
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· 04/17/2010 2:24:46 PM PDT · · Posted by Sub-Driver · · 60 replies · 1,269+ views · · NY Daily News · |
President George Washington racks up $300,000 late fee for two Manhattan library books BY Rich Schapiro DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER Saturday, April 17th 2010, 4:00 AM He may have never told a lie, but George Washington apparently had no problem stiffing a Manhattan library on two books. Two centuries ago, the nation's first President borrowed two tomes from the New York Society Library on E. 79th St. and never returned them, racking up an inflation-adjusted $300,000 late fee. But Washington can rest easy. "We're not actively pursuing the overdue fines," quipped head librarian Mark Bartlett. "But we would be very... |
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| 184-year-old Adams letter found |
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· 04/21/2010 12:38:59 PM PDT · · Posted by txroadkill · · 19 replies · 1,634+ views · · The Boston Globe · · David Abel · |
QUINCY -- Paul Hines, an assistant city solicitor, was combing through dozens of old boxes in the musty basement of City Hall, searching for records to defend the city from a lawsuit, when he made an unexpected find. A dust-covered box in one of the 126-year-old building's former jail cells was filled with old scrapbooks. As Hines leafed through the brittle pages earlier this month, he came upon a letter from 1826 that addressed the burial of John Adams and his wife, Abigail, in First Parish Church across the street from City Hall. And when he flipped over the sheet... |
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| Alexander Hamilton and New Jersey perfect together |
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· 04/18/2010 2:18:40 PM PDT · · Posted by Coleus · · 6 replies · 243+ views · · northjersey.com · · 01.24.10 · · RICHARD TOWNSEND · |
Our early New Jersey statesmen were more than acquaintances. Alexander Hamilton, with a handful of his associates, was a central figure in the development of the Village of Bergen into Jersey City. Prior to the War of Independence, the colonies under English rule were prohibited from manufacturing products for their own use. For example, iron ore was converted to pig iron and shipped to England. There, the pig iron was used to manufacture a wide variety of products that were shipped back to the colonies for sale. This was one of the causes of the Revolution. After the war, Hamilton... |
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| Dr. Benjamin Franklin Statement to 1787 Constitutional Convention RE: Executive Salary |
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· 04/18/2010 5:02:58 PM PDT · · Posted by dajeeps · · 13 replies · 437+ views · · The Avalon Project · · 1787 · · Dr. Benjamin Franklin · |
Dr. B. Franklin Madison Debates Saturday June 2, 1787 IN COMMITTEE OF WHOLE Sir. It is with reluctance that I rise to express a disapprobation of any one article of the plan for which we are so much obliged to the honorable gentleman who laid it before us. From its first reading I have borne a good will to it, and in general wished it success. In this particular of salaries to the Executive branch I happen to differ; and as my opinion may appear new and chimerical, it is only from a persuasion that it is right, and from... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Research restores credit for an engineering feat (Cabin John Bridge [Union Arch Bridge]) |
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· 04/21/2010 10:28:10 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · 301+ views · · Case Western Reserve University · · Apr 21, 2010 · · Unknown · |
Bridge designer and builder denied recognition after joining Confederacy -- Carved in stone on a Civil War-era bridge -- a world-class feat of engineering that stands a couple miles northwest of Washington - are the names of builders and officials of the day. A key name, however, is missing. New research shows that Virginian Alfred R. Rives led the design and construction of the Cabin John Bridge. Also called the Union Arch Bridge, the aqueduct and roadway reaches 220 feet across Cabin John Creek in a single span - the world's longest single-span masonry bridge for nearly 40 years and the nation's... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Remembering the Forsaken -- a review of the book "The Forsaken: An American Tragedy In Stalin's Russia" |
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· 04/22/2010 10:09:29 AM PDT · · Posted by GonzoII · · 8 replies · 203+ views · · Tradition Family and Property · · Francis Slobodnik · · Tuesday, 12 January 2010 · |
In times of social and political turmoil, it is not uncommon for men to grasp for what appear to be easy solutions. Oftentimes, these impulsive decisions can have disastrous consequences. There is nothing meritorious about change in and of itself. The virtuous person prayerfully reasons through the options before making decisions. Men with little virtue grab desperately for anything that, on the surface, appears will improve their... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| UM digs find 10,000-year-old Native oasis |
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· 04/17/2010 7:02:34 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 9 replies · 415+ views · · missoulian.com · · April 3, 2010 · · BRETT FRENCH · |
Thousands of years before Euro-Americans "discovered" the bubbling mudpots and eruptive geysers of what is now Yellowstone National Park, early Americans were spending part of their summer camping in the Yellowstone Lake area. "It's always been a destination resort," said Elaine Hale, park archaeologist. "For at least 10,000 years people have been using the lake area." Thanks to archaeological digs around Yellowstone Lake last summer by University of Montana assistant archaeology professor Douglas MacDonald and 13 graduate and undergrad students, park officials are now getting a broader picture of early human use of the lake area. "The lake may have... |
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| Sunflower Genes Yield Traces Of Early Native Americans |
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· 04/17/2010 7:19:18 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 14 replies · 344+ views · · Redorbit.com · · 2 April 2010 · |
New information about early Native Americans' horticultural practices comes not from hieroglyphs or other artifacts, but from a suite of four gene duplicates found in wild and domesticated sunflowers. In an upcoming issue of Current Biology, Indiana University Bloomington biologists present the first concrete evidence for how gene duplications can lead to functional diversity in organisms. In this case, the scientists learned how duplications of a gene called FLOWERING LOCUS T, or FT, could have evolved and interacted to prolong a flower's time to grow. A longer flower growth period means a bigger sunflower -- presumably an attribute of great... |
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| Climate | |
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| W.Va. Stalagmite Points to Surprising Carbon Footprint |
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· 04/19/2010 12:04:54 PM PDT · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 33 replies · 1,085+ views · · aol News · · 19/4/10 · · Dave Thier · |
(April 18) -- The popular American myth of the "noble savage" -- perpetuated by novelists, painters, elementary schoolteachers and James Cameron alike -- holds that the original inhabitants of this continent were shining paragons of living in harmony with Mother Nature. But archaeology, and history, tell a different story: that Native Americans before 1492 seemed to be, well, people. Courtesy Gregory Springer, Ohio University This stalagmite, found in a West Virginia cave, showed a major change in the area's local ecosystem at about 100 B.C. The latest evidence for this comes from scientists at Ohio University, who have made a... |
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| Biology and Cryptobiology | |
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| Clever New Caledonian crows can use three tools |
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· 04/22/2010 3:23:28 AM PDT · · Posted by Daffynition · · 17 replies · 350+ views · · BBC · · 20 April 2010 · · Rebecca Morelle · |
New Caledonian crows have given scientists yet another display of their tool-using prowess. Scientists from New Zealand's University of Auckland have found that the birds are able to use three tools in succession to reach some food. The crows, which use tools in the wild, have also shown other problem-solving behaviour, but this find suggests they are more innovative than was thought. The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The team headed to the South Pacific island of New Caledonia, the home of Corvus moneduloides. Finding that the crows could solve the problem... was incredibly... |
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| end of digest #301 20100424 | |
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