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· Saturday, January 1, 2011 · 27 topics · 2648935 to 2647430 · 762 members · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #337 Saturday, January 1, 2011 |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Armageddon Fortress May Hold Keys to History |
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· 12/26/2010 9:43:25 PM PST · · Posted by Alex Murphy · · 23 replies · 2+ views · · AOL News · · Dec 26, 2010 · · Matthew Kalman · |
MEGIDDO, Israel -- The Book of Revelation says the biblical fortress of Armageddon will be the site of an apocalyptic battle between good and evil at the end of time. Scientists believe it could also be the place where time begins -- at least for archaeology. In a groundbreaking new project, scholars are using the rich archaeological remains that soar more than 50 feet above the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel to synchronize the clocks of the ancient world and create the first definitive calendar of human history. The word "Armageddon" comes from the Hebrew Har Megiddo, which means mountain... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Did first humans come out of Middle East and not Africa?... |
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· 12/27/2010 4:13:51 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 44 replies · 4+ views · · Daily Mail · · December 27, 2010 · · Matthew Kalman · |
Scientists could be forced to re-write the history of the evolution of modern man after the discovery of 400,000-year-old human remains. Until now, researchers believed that homo sapiens, the direct descendants of modern man, evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and gradually migrated north, through the Middle East, to Europe and Asia. Recently, discoveries of early human remains in China and Spain have cast doubt on the 'Out of Africa' theory, but no-one was certain. The new discovery of pre-historic human remains by Israeli university explorers in a cave near Ben-Gurion airport could force scientists to re-think earlier theories. |
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| Researchers: Ancient human remains found in Israel |
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· 12/28/2010 9:05:38 AM PST · · Posted by Immerito · · 24 replies · 5+ views · · Yahoo! News · · December 27, 2010 · · Daniel Estrin · |
JERUSALEM -- Israeli archaeologists said Monday they may have found the earliest evidence yet for the existence of modern man, and if so, it could upset theories of the origin of humans. A Tel Aviv University team excavating a cave in central Israel said teeth found in the cave are about 400,000 years old and resemble those of other remains of modern man, known scientifically as Homo sapiens, found in Israel. The earliest Homo sapiens remains found until now are half as old. |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| You are what your father ate |
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· 12/26/2010 1:40:23 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 49 replies · 4+ views · · UMass Medical School · · December 23, 2010 · · Unknown · |
UMMS research suggests paternal diet affects lipid metabolizing genes in offspring -- Scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Texas at Austin have uncovered evidence that environmental influences experienced by a father can be passed down to the next generation, "reprogramming" how genes function in offspring. A new study published this week in Cell shows that environmental cues -- in this case, diet -- influence genes in mammals from one generation to the next, evidence that until now has been sparse. These insights, coupled with previous human epidemiological studies, suggest that paternal environmental effects may play a more... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| US study finds Neanderthals ate their veggies |
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· 12/27/2010 2:01:06 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 27 replies · 5+ views · · AFP · · December 27, 2010 · · Unknown · |
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- A US study on Monday found that Neanderthals, prehistoric cousins of humans, ate grains and vegetables as well as meat, cooking them over fire in the same way homo sapiens did. The new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) challenges a prevailing theory that Neanderthals' over reliance on meat contributed to their extinction around 30,000 years ago. Researchers found grains from numerous plants, including a type of wild grass, as well as traces of roots and tubers, trapped in plaque buildup on fossilized Neanderthal teeth unearthed in northern Europe and Iraq. |
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| Darwinners & Losers | |
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| Scientists say new human relative roamed widely in Asia |
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· 12/25/2010 1:48:33 AM PST · · Posted by Islander7 · · 21 replies · 2+ views · · Star Advertiser · · Dec 22, 2010 · · Malcolm Ritter · |
NEW YORK -- Scientists have recovered the DNA code of a human relative recently discovered in Siberia, and it delivered a surprise: This relative roamed far from the cave that holds its only known remains. By comparing the DNA to that of modern populations, scientists found evidence that these "Denisovans" from more than 30,000 years ago ranged all across Asia. They apparently interbred with the ancestors of people now living in Melanesia, a group of islands northeast of Australia. |
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| Fish Swam the Sahara, Bolstering Out of Africa Theory |
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· 12/29/2010 11:42:33 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 30 replies · 4+ views · · Live Science · · December 29, 2010 · · Charles Q. Choi · |
Fish may have once swum across the Sahara, a finding that could shed light on how humanity made its way out of Africa, researchers said. The cradle of humanity lies south of the Sahara, which begs the question as to how our species made its way past it. The Sahara is the largest hot desert in the world, and would seem a major barrier for any humans striving to migrate off the continent. Scientists have often focused on the Nile Valley as the corridor by which humans left Africa. However, considerable research efforts have failed to uncover evidence for its... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| What Triggers Mass Extinctions? Study Shows How Invasive Species Stop New Life |
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· 12/30/2010 8:02:00 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 37 replies · 51+ views · · National Science Foundation · · December 29, 2010 · · Unknown · |
An influx of invasive species can stop the dominant natural process of new species formation and trigger mass extinction events, according to research results published today in the journal PLoS ONE. The study of the collapse of Earth's marine life 378 to 375 million years ago suggests that the planet's current ecosystems, which are struggling with biodiversity loss, could meet a similar fate. Although Earth has experienced five major mass extinction events, the environmental crash during the Late Devonian was unlike any other in the planet's history. The actual number of extinctions wasn't higher than the natural rate of species... |
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| Climate | |
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| Assessing the accuracy of ice-core CO2 records |
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· 12/26/2010 8:48:45 AM PST · · Posted by steveab · · 40 replies · 2+ views · · Greenie Watch · · 12-25-2010 · · David Middleton · |
Assessing the accuracy of ice-core CO2 records In the excerpt below, David Middleton points out large problems with ice-core data and suggests that fossil Plant Stomata give a much more accurate account of past CO2 levels -- an account that gives no support for Warmism at all and which in fact supports the obvious physics of the matter: Warming causes higher CO2 levels rather than vice versa |
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| Africa | |
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| Lost Cities of the Sahara |
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· 12/26/2010 9:06:39 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 53 replies · · University of Leicester · · July 26, 2000 · · Barbara Whiteman · |
...the Garamantes - a mysterious desert people of Greco-Roman date (broadly 500 BC AD 500)... Inhabiting a region that had already been for several thousand years a hyper-arid desert environment, with negligible rainfall, elevated summer temperatures and blistering expanses of barren sand and rock... have long been an enigma. They were depicted by Roman sources as ungovernable nomadic barbarians, who raided the settled agricultural zone and cities of the Mediterranean littoral. Following up earlier work by Daniels, the current project allows a different picture of the Garamantes to be drawn. Archaeological evidence shows them to have been a complex and... |
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| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran | |
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| Natural factors added to threats to Shush Castle |
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· 12/27/2010 11:57:45 PM PST · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 9 replies · 1+ views · · Tehran Times · · 28 Dec 2010 · · Culture Desk · |
TEHRAN -- Natural environmental factors have been added to the perils threatening the Shush Castle, a historical monument that is a storehouse of many ancient Iranian inscriptions and artifacts. Heavy rainfalls and strong winds have dealt devastating blows to the castle, the Persian service of the Mehr News Agency reported on Monday. The Shush Castle is located on a hill in Shush near the ancient sites of Susa in Khuzestan Province in southwestern Iran. The construction of the Shush Castle was started in 1897 by the French civil engineer, geologist, and archaeologist Jacques Jean-Marie de Morgan (1857-1924), who had come... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Ancient rock art's colours come from microbes (Australia) |
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· 12/28/2010 1:35:28 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 8 replies · 5+ views · · BBC · · December 27, 2010 · · Unknown · |
A particular type of ancient rock art in Western Australia maintains its vivid colours because it is alive, researchers have found.While some rock art fades in hundreds of years, the "Bradshaw art" remains colourful after at least 40,000 years. Jack Pettigrew of the University of Queensland in Australia has shown that the paintings have been colonised by colourful bacteria and fungi. These "biofilms" may explain previous difficulties in dating such rock art. Professor Pettigrew and his colleagues studied 80 of these Bradshaw rock artworks - named for the 19th-Century naturalist who first identified them - in 16 locations within Western... |
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| Archaeoastronomy & Megaliths | |
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| Stonehenge Built With Balls? New experiment suggests monumental stones could have rolled on rails |
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· 12/30/2010 3:10:25 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 34 replies · 18+ views · · National Geographic News · · Friday, December 10, 2010 · · Kate Ravilious · |
It's one of Stonehenge's greatest mysteries: How did Stone Age Britons move 45-ton slabs across dozens of miles to create the 4,500-year-old stone circle? ...A previous theory suggested that the builders used wooden rollers -- carved tree trunks laid side by side on a constructed hard surface. Another imagined huge wooden sleds atop greased wooden rails. But critics say the rollers' hard pathway would have left telltale gouges in the landscape, which have never been found. And the sled system, while plausible, would have required huge amounts of manpower -- hundreds of men at a time to move one of... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Archaeologists to probe Sherwood Forest's 'Thing' [ Thynghowe ] |
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· 12/29/2010 6:27:55 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 22 replies · 14+ views · · BBC · · Wednesday, December 29, 2010 · · unattributed · |
A team of experts hope to shed new light on one of Nottinghamshire's most mysterious ancient monuments. A 'Thing', or open-air meeting place where Vikings gathered to discuss the law, was discovered in the Birklands, Sherwood Forest, five years ago... It started after husband and wife team Lynda Mallett and Stuart Reddish, along with their friend John Wood, came into possession of a 200 year old document. It described a walk around part of Sherwood Forest which marked an ancient boundary. They searched for the boundary on the landscape and found a place called Hanger Hill on which stood three... |
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| Britain | |
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| The Battle of Towton :Nasty, brutish and not that short |
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· 12/29/2010 5:00:36 PM PST · · Posted by worst-case scenario · · 18 replies · 9+ views · · The Economist · · Dec 16 2010 · |
Medieval warfare was just as terrifying as you might imagine. THE soldier now known as Towton 25 had survived battle before. A healed skull fracture points to previous engagements. He was old enough -- somewhere between 36 and 45 when he died -- to have gained plenty of experience of fighting. But on March 29th 1461, his luck ran out. Towton 25 suffered eight wounds to his head that day. The precise order can be worked out from the direction of fractures on his skull: when bone breaks, the cracks veer towards existing areas of weakness. The first five blows were delivered by a... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Rare Discovery of Intact Tomb: German Archeologists Uncover Celtic Treasure |
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· 12/29/2010 7:07:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · 28+ views · · Spiegel · · Wednesday, December 29, 2010 · · cro -- with wire reports · |
Archeologists in Germany have discovered a 2,600-year-old Celtic tomb containing ornate jewellery of gold and amber. They say the grave is unusually well preserved and should provide important insights into early Celtic culture... The subterranean chamber measuring four by five meters was uncovered near the prehistoric Heuneburg hill fort near the town of Herbertingen in south-western Germany. Its contents including the oak floor of the room are unusually well preserved. The find is a "milestone for the reconstruction of the social history of the Celts," archeologist Dirk Krausse, the director of the dig, said on Tuesday. The intact oak should... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Mead, drink of Vikings, comes out of the Dark Ages |
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· 12/29/2010 10:09:41 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 51 replies · · hosted.ap.org · · Dec 29 · · Allen G. Breed · |
Pittsboro, N.C. (AP) -- Mead, that drink of viking saga and medieval verse, is making a comeback. But this ain't your ancestors' honey wine. "It's not just for the Renaissance fair anymore," says Becky Starr, co-owner of Starrlight Mead, which recently opened in an old woven label mill in this little North Carolina town. In fact, this most ancient of alcoholic libations hasn't been this hot since Beowulf slew Grendel's dam and Geoffrey Chaucer fell in with the Canterbury pilgrims at the Tabard./font> |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| Ancient Maya Temples Were Giant Loudspeakers? |
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· 12/30/2010 7:01:44 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 40 replies · 437+ views · · National Geographic News · · December 16, 2010 · · Ker Than · |
Centuries before the first speakers and subwoofers, ancient Americans -- intentionally or not -- may have been turning buildings into giant sound amplifiers and distorters to enthrall or disorient audiences, archaeologists say. Temples at the ancient Maya city of Palenque (map) in central Mexico, for example, might have formed a kind of "unplugged" public-address system, projecting sound across great distances, according to a team led by archaeologist Francisca Zalaquett of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Zalaquett's team recently discovered that Palenque's Northern Group of public squares and temples -- built around roughly A.D. 600 -- is especially good at... |
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| America's Forgotten City |
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· 12/30/2010 2:07:10 AM PST · · Posted by BlueMoose · · 16 replies · 31+ views · · National Geographic · · Jan 2011 · · National Geographic · |
If they ever build a Wal-Mart at Machu Picchu, I will think of Collinsville Road. |
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| The Greeks | |
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| The Original Birth of Freedom - What we owe the audacious Athenians |
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· 12/27/2010 9:03:08 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 9 replies · 1+ views · · City Journal · · Autumn 2010 · · André Glucksmann · |
Over the centuries, there have appeared two great conceptions of freedom. The first vision, which one can call "epic freedom," is freedom as Hegel or Marx understood it, the freedom of messianists and of revolutionaries. The meaning of freedom, on this view, is the progressive emancipation of man: step by step, battle by battle, mankind is supposed to break with its alienations and become the creator and absolute master of its fate. Epic freedom is the assumption of a cosmic mastery, more and more aware of itself. Crises become mere historical stages on the way to the final achievement of... |
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| Early America | |
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| Jamestown unearths 400-year-old pipes for patrons (tobacco pipes) |
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· 12/31/2010 7:44:44 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · Associated Press · · December 31, 2010 · · Michael Felberbaum · |
Richmond, Va. -- Archeologists at Jamestown have unearthed a trove of tobacco pipes personalized for a who's who of early 17th century colonial and British elites, underscoring the importance of tobacco to North America's first permanent English settlement. "It really brings the people back into the picture," said Bly Straube, senior archaeological curator for the Jamestown Rediscovery Project. "We have a lot of artifacts that we can associate with types of people like gentleman or women or children, but to find things like the pipe that bears the name Sir Walter Raleigh, I mean, my goodness. ... It just... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Tea totaler returns Memphis to revolutionary roots (Tea Party) |
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· 12/29/2010 3:38:00 PM PST · · Posted by GailA · · 11 replies · 3+ views · · The Commercial Appeal · · 12/29/10 · · Richard Morgan · |
He was the last president to be a Revolutionary War veteran. Orphaned at 14 by that war, Andrew Jackson went on to be a country lawyer in the pre-Tennessee Southwest Territory. He soon became the state's first U.S. senator, before resigning. He was also a judge on the Tennessee Supreme Court and commander of Tennessee's militia. Then, in 1819, with two other men, he founded Memphis. In 1999, Mark Skoda -- now 56 -- moved to Memphis, which set the stage for a new kind of revolution. Nationwide in 2010, feral Jacksonian populism reigned. This was the year of the... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Photographs of the World's First Aircraft Carrier Resurface |
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· 12/27/2010 8:04:19 PM PST · · Posted by nuconvert · · 25 replies · 3+ views · · The Atlantic · |
On November 14, 1910, Eugene Ely became the first pilot to successfully launch a plane from a stationary ship. The Curtiss pusher airplane, one of the first models in the world to be built in any significant quantity, flew for two miles before Ely landed on a beach. Using the same aircraft, Ely landed on the USS Pennsylvania on January 18, 1911, while the ship was anchored at the San Francisco waterfront. He had to use a braking system made of ropes and sandbags, but he was able to quickly turn around and take off once again, proving that ideas... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| A 1944 Christmas miracle for Gen. Patton |
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· 12/26/2010 6:31:05 AM PST · · Posted by Saije · · 46 replies · 2+ views · · LA Times · · 12/26/2010 · · Alison Bell · |
In early December 1944, Gen. George S. Patton Jr., commander of the United States' 3rd Army, stood with his troops at Germany's doorstep. He'd pushed his men across France toward Germany with furious speed during summer and early fall, but in the last months, as he drove through France's Lorraine region toward the Saar River, progress stalled. Fuel and supplies were running short, and perhaps even more deviling, the weather wouldn't cooperate. Driving rains had mired his troops and grounded the fighter planes and bombers needed for air support. On Dec. 8, Patton turned to a higher power to clear... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| NM gov. declines to pardon outlaw Billy the Kid |
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· 12/31/2010 8:38:03 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 45 replies · · hosted.ap.org · · Dec 31 · |
Santa Fe, N.M. (AP) -- Billy the Kid, the Old West outlaw who killed at least three lawmen and tried to cut a deal from jail with territorial authorities, won't be pardoned, Gov. Bill Richardson said Friday. The prospect of a pardon for the notorious frontier figure nearly 130 years after his death drew international attention to New Mexico, centering on whether Billy the Kid had been promised a pardon from New Mexico's territorial governor in return for testimony in killings he had witnessed. |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| English language has doubled in size in the last century |
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· 12/30/2010 3:39:23 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · 32+ views · · Telegraph · · December 16, 2010 · · Richard Alleyne · |
Researchers at Harvard University and Google found that the language was expanding by 8,500 words a year in the new millennium and now stands at 1,022,000 words. The rate of increase over the years is shown by the fact the language has grown by more than 70 per cent since 1950, according to the study. The previous half century it only grew by a tenth. But nearly half of the new words are not included in any dictionary and are dubbed lexical "dark matter". They are either slang or invented jargon. The findings came from the computer analyse of 5,195,769... |
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| Pages | |
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| What Are You Reading Now? - My Quarterly Survey |
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· 12/31/2010 7:25:35 AM PST · · Posted by MplsSteve · · 189 replies · · 12/31/10 · · MplsSteve · |
Hello everyone! it's time for my quarterly "What Are You reading Now?" survey. As you know, I consider Freepers to be among the more well-read of those of us out in cyberspace. As a result, I like to find out what you're reading. It can be anything...a technical journal, a NY TImes bestseller, a trashy pulp novel, in short, it can be anything. Please do not defile this thread by posting "I'm reading this thread". It became very unfunny a long long time ago. I'll start. I went to the library and picked up a copy of "Sam Walton, Made... |
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| end of digest #337 20110101 | |
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· Saturday, January 1, 2011 · 27 topics · 2648935 to 2647430 · 762 members · |
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Saturday |
Happy New Year! |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #338 Saturday, January 8, 2011 |
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| Panspermia | |
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| Origin of life on Earth: the 'natural' asymmetry of biological molecules may have come from space |
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· 01/07/2011 6:02:35 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · · AlphaGalileo · · Friday, January 7, 2011 · · CNRS · |
Certain molecules do exist in two forms which are symmetrical mirror images of each other: they are known as chiral molecules. On Earth, the chiral molecules of life, especially amino acids and sugars, exist in only one form, either left-handed or right-handed. Why is it that life has initially chosen one form over the other? A consortium bringing together several French teams led by Louis d'Hendecourt, CNRS senior researcher at the Institut d'astrophysique spatiale (Université Paris-Sud 11 / CNRS), has for the first time obtained an excess of left-handed molecules (and then an excess of right-handedones) under conditions that reproduce... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Fossilized Bird Brains May Yield Secret of First Flights |
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· 01/01/2011 5:28:01 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · · Live Science · · January 1, 2011 · · Charles Q. Choi · |
By reconstructing the brains of extinct birds, researchers could shed light on when birds evolved into creatures of flight. Overwhelming evidence suggests birds evolved from dinosaurs some 150 million years ago, but one of the missing pieces to the evolutionary puzzle is how such birds took to the air. Scientists in Scotland are focusing on changes in the size of a part of the rear of the brain. This part of the cerebellum, known as the flocculus, is responsible for integrating visual and balance signals during flight, allowing birds to judge the position of other objects in midflight. [3-D Image... |
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| Ancient 8-Foot Sea Scorpions Probably Were Pussycats |
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· 01/03/2011 10:07:49 AM PST · · Posted by Silentgypsy · · 29 replies · · Live Science · · 12/30/2010 · · Charles Q. Choi · |
Ancient sea scorpions included the largest and arguably most frightening bug-like creatures known to have lived on Earth, but despite their fearsome claws, these giants might actually have been creampuffs, scientists think. |
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| Help needed identifying fossils (Vanity) |
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· 01/01/2011 6:51:30 AM PST · · Posted by Hotmetal · · 55 replies · |
I found all of these on my first outting in one creek. I was told the large teeth are from a mastodon but they don't look like the ones I've seen on the web. The vertabra I was told, are maybe from a mosasaur. |
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| Africa | |
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| Rodents Were Diverse and Abundant in Prehistoric Africa When Our Human Ancestors Evolved |
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· 01/01/2011 5:35:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · ScienceDaily · · December 29, 2010 · · Margaret Allen et al · |
Rodents get a bad rap as vermin and pests because they seem to thrive everywhere. They have been one of the most common mammals in Africa for the past 50 million years. From deserts to rainforests, rodents flourished in prehistoric Africa, making them a stable and plentiful source of food, says paleontologist Alisa J. Winkler, an expert on rodent and rabbit fossils... Rodents can corroborate evidence from geology and plant and animal fossils about the ancient environments of our human ancestors and other prehistoric mammals, says Winkler, a research professor at Southern Methodist University... Rodents -- rats, mice, squirrels, porcupines,... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| UF study of lice DNA shows humans first wore clothes 170,000 years ago |
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· 01/06/2011 1:54:04 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 52 replies · · University of Florida · · January 6, 2011 · · Danielle Torrent · |
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- A new University of Florida study following the evolution of lice shows modern humans started wearing clothes about 170,000 years ago, a technology which enabled them to successfully migrate out of Africa. Principal investigator David Reed, associate curator of mammals at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, studies lice in modern humans to better understand human evolution and migration patterns. His latest five-year study used DNA sequencing to calculate when clothing lice first began to diverge genetically from human head lice. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the study is available online and... |
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| Male Susceptibility to Parasites May Help Explain Shorter Lifespans |
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· 09/25/2002 1:17:19 PM PDT · · Posted by PatrickHenry · · 90 replies · 567+ views · · Scientific American · · September 20, 2002 · · Sarah Graham · |
In Westernized societies, women tend to outlive men. The established explanation for this inequality is that males undertake more risky behavior than females do and, as a result, perish prematurely. But new research published today in the journal Science suggests that parasites could be at least partially responsible. Sarah L. Moore and Kenneth Wilson of the University of Stirling analyzed parasitic infections in 355 nonhuman mammal species and found that males were more likely than females to succumb to parasites. What causes this small but significant increase remains unclear. With their generally larger size, males may just make more attractive... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Bacteria's Viral DNA Offers a Sneak Peek into Primitive Immune Systems |
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· 12/31/2010 9:47:25 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · Daily Tech · · December 31, 2010 · · Tiffany Kaiser · |
Viral DNA trapped in a bacteria cell's chromosome for millions of years has shown how bacteria becomes resistant to antibioticsA Texas A&M University researcher has discovered how nature's most primitive immune systems worked by studying bacteria's methods of resisting antibiotics over millions of years. Thomas Wood, study leader and professor in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University, along with a team of researchers, have researched bacteria's method of using DNA from invading viruses to build a resistance to antibiotics, which revealed the secrets behind how nature's earliest immune systems worked and how it affects humans... |
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| Navigation | |
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| Cretan tools point to 130,000-year-old sea travel |
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· 01/03/2011 1:35:19 PM PST · · Posted by Fractal Trader · · 18 replies · · AP via Google · · 3 January 2011 · |
Archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered what may be evidence of one of the world's first sea voyages by human ancestors, the Greek Culture Ministry said Monday A ministry statement said experts from Greece and the U.S. have found rough axes and other tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old close to shelters on the island's south coast. Crete has been separated from the mainland for about five million years, so whoever made the tools must have traveled there by sea (a distance of at least 40 miles). That would upset the current view that... |
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| Homo Erectus | |
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| Ancient African exodus mostly involved men, geneticists find |
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· 12/22/2008 5:14:35 PM PST · · Posted by CE2949BB · · 25 replies · 733+ views · · Science Codex · · December 21, 2008 · |
BOSTON, Mass. (Dec. 21, 2008) -- Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago in a migration that many believe was responsible for nearly all of the human population that exist outside Africa today. |
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| Discovery Supports Theory Of A Single Species Of Human Ancestor |
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· 03/21/2002 12:22:11 PM PST · · Posted by blam · · 24 replies · 555+ views · · Science Daily · · 3-21-2002 · |
Discovery Supports Theory Of A Single Species Of Human Ancestor New Haven, Conn. - The discovery of a million-year-old skull in Ethiopia indicates that a single species of human ancestor, Homo erectus, ranged from Europe to Africa to Asia in the Pleistocene era, according to the cover article in the March 21 issue of the journal Nature. The finding by the research team, which included Elidabeth Vrba, a Yale professor of paleontology in the Department of Geology and Geophysics, contradicts recent suggestions that there was a fundamental, early split in the homolineage between Eurasiatic and African populations. "This find puts... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Debate Is Fueled on When Humans Became Human |
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· 02/26/2002 10:50:54 AM PST · · Posted by dead · · 147 replies · 1,109+ views · · New York Times · · February 26, 2002 · · John Noble Wilford · |
On the biggest steps in early human evolution scientists are in agreement. The first human ancestors appeared between five million and seven million years ago, probably when some apelike creatures in Africa began to walk habitually on two legs. They were flaking crude stone tools by 2.5 million years ago. Then some of them spread from Africa into Asia and Europe after two million years ago. With somewhat less certainty, most scientists think that people who look like us -- anatomically modern Homo sapiens -- evolved by at least 130,000 years ago from ancestors who had remained in Africa. ... |
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| Infertile Crescent | |
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| Tower of Babel's Ruins Waiting for Archaeologists (Dispensational Caucus) |
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· 01/04/2011 2:51:24 PM PST · · Posted by GiovannaNicoletta · · 43 replies · · Israel National News · · January 3, 2011 · · Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu · |
snip Following years of devastation under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the ensuing American invasion of Iraq, World Monuments Fund conservationist Jeff Allen told The New York Times this week that archeologists are beginning to work on ancient Babylonian sites and possibly restore some of them. snip |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Q&A: Dead Languages Reveal a Lost World [ interview with Gonzalo Rubio ] |
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· 01/01/2011 7:11:58 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 14 replies · · LiveScience · · Thursday, December 28, 2010 · · Clara Moskowitz · |
Gonzalo Rubio spends his days reading dead languages that haven't been spoken for thousands of years. An assyriologist at Pennsylvania State University, Rubio studies the world's very first written languages, Sumerian and Akkadian, which were used in ancient Mesopotamia (an area covering modern-day Iraq). Sumerian appeared first, almost 5,000 years ago around the year 3,100 B.C. This writing was scratched into soft clay tablets with a pointed reed that had been cut into a wedge shape. Archaeologists call this first writing "cuneiform," from the Latin "cuneus," meaning wedge. Sumerian and Akkadian were the languages of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization, which... |
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| India | |
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| A prehistoric map painted on a cave in India |
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· 01/01/2011 5:59:57 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 59 replies · · Stone Pages · · Friday, December 31, 2010 · · Archaeo News · |
A team of researchers from the Archaeological Survey of India has unearthed maps depicted on the roof of a cave in Karnataka (India) that date back to 1500-2000 BCE. What was once thought to be a megalithic burial site with just paintings of animals and humans, could be the proof of the cartographic skills of prehistoric Indians... While paintings of animals such as cows, hunting scenes and human figurines are common across prehistoric settlements, only the Chikramapura village caves, also called Kadebagilu rock shelters, feature maps... According to Keshava, the prehistoric man obtained a bird's eye view of an area... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Urartian king's burial chamber opened for first time [ Argishti ] |
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· 01/08/2011 7:43:24 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 3 replies · · Today's Zaman · · Monday, January 3, 2011 · · Anatolia News Agency · |
Burial chambers of Urartian King Argishti and his family in the western wing of the ancient castle in the eastern province of Van was opened for the first time. The Anatolia news agency took photographs and video of the burial chambers which were closed to visitors. Centered around the Lake Van in the eastern Turkey, the Urartian Kingdom ruled from the mid 9th century BC till its defeat by Media in the early 6th century BC. The most splendid monuments of the Urartian Kingdom take place in Van since the city was the capital of the kingdom. Built on a... |
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| The Greeks | |
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| A Toast to History: 500 Years of Wine Drinking Cups Mark Social Shifts in Ancient Greece |
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· 01/03/2011 4:25:22 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 8 replies · · University of Cincinnati · · January 3, 2011 · · M.B. Reilly · |
University of Cincinnati research examines a timeline of wine drinking cups over a 500-year period in ancient Athens. Changes in cup form and design point to political, social and economic shifts. How commonly used items -- like wine drinking cups -- change through time can tell us a lot about those times, according to University of Cincinnati research to be presented Jan. 7 by Kathleen Lynch, UC associate professor of classics, at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. Lynch will present the research at the event's Gold Medal Session, when archaeology's most distinguished honor will be bestowed... |
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| Dacia | |
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| The Sarmizegetusa bracelets |
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· 01/01/2011 7:23:59 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · Antiquity · · v84 n326 pp 1028-1042 · · Bogdan Constantinescu et al · |
We present the authentication and analysis of these beautiful Dacian bracelets of the first century BC, originally pillaged by treasure hunters and recovered thanks to an international crime chase. They were originally fashioned from gold panned from the rivers or dug from the mines of Transylvania and hammered into the form of coiled snakes. The lack of context is the greatest loss, but a votive purpose is likely given their proximity to the great sacred centre at Sarmizegetusa Regia. links to the PDF version of the article, if available. |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Nokalakevi-Archaeopolis: ten years of Anglo-Georgian collaboration |
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· 01/01/2011 7:37:16 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 5 replies · · Antiquity · · v084 n326 December 2010 · · Paul Everill et al · |
Nestled by the picturesque river Tekhuri, on the northern edge of the Colchian plain in Samegrelo, western Georgia, lie the impressive ruins of Nokalakevi (Figures 1 & 2). Occupying some 20ha, the site was known to early Byzantine historians as Archaeopolis, and to the neighbouring Georgian (Kartlian) chroniclers as Tsikhegoji, or the fortress of Kuji -- a semi-mythical Colchian ruler or 'Eristavi'. The fortress is located 15km from the modern town of Senaki on the Martvili road, and would have commanded an important crossing point of the river Tekhuri, at the junction with a valuable strategic route that still winds... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Professor discovers hidden literary references in the Mona Lisa |
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· 01/06/2011 12:40:58 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 22 replies · · Queen's University · · January 6, 2011 · · Unknown · |
Queen's University Classics professor emeritus Ross Kilpatrick believes the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece, the Mona Lisa, incorporates images inspired by the Roman poet Horace and Florentine poet Petrarch. The technique of taking a passage from literature and incorporating it into a work of art is known as "invention' and was used by many Renaissance artists. "The composition of the Mona Lisa is striking. Why does Leonardo have an attractive woman sitting on a balcony, while in the background there is an entirely different world that is vast and barren?" says Dr. Kilpatrick. "What is the artist trying to say?" |
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| Pyramid Power | |
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| Great Secret In Pyramid Construction Finally Revealed |
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· 01/01/2011 11:28:29 PM PST · · Posted by ChinaGotTheGoodsOnClinton · · 70 replies · · Egypt's Ten Greatest Discoveries · · self · |
Great Secret In Pyramid Construction Finally Revealed The Egyptians had a secret that allowed construction of the pyramids. Labor Unions! I am not kidding. I about fell off my stationary bike today watching Egypt's Ten Greatest Discoveries. The great genius Zahi Hawass came to this conclusion because: There is evidence that some of them had their broken bones cared for (thus they had union healthcare) They ate a very good diet consisting of fresh fish and grains. Some of their organizers were buried in granite tombs composed of discard of the pharaoh's tombs they were working on so these were... |
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| Egypt | |
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| 21st century Welsh technology to save 27th century Egyptian Pyramid |
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· 01/01/2011 5:13:58 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · Past Horizons · · Saturday, January 1, 2011 · · unattributed · |
A Welsh engineering firm called Cintec has been enlisted by the Supreme Council of Antiquities to help save the iconic Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. The pyramid was built around 2640 BCE for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser by the fabled architect Inhoptep, but in 1992 after a major earthquake caused serious faults in the famous 4600 year old structure. The tomb started life as an unusual square mastaba -- normally they are flat-roofed, rectangular structures with outward sloping sides -- but over the lifetime of Djoser it develop into a six-stepped pyramid with a rectangular ground-plan. Below ground,... |
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| The Comedy Never Stops | |
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| Israeli Plagues Kill many Egyptians as cycle of violence continues |
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· 04/01/2004 3:01:14 PM PST · · Posted by yonif · · 18 replies · 400+ views · · Received in an urgent email · · 4/1/2004 · · unknown · |
The cycle of violence between the Jews and the Egyptians continues with no end in sight in Egypt. After eight previous plagues that have destroyed the Egyptian infrastructure and disrupted the lives of ordinary Egyptian citizens, the Jews launched a new offensive this week in the form of the plague of darkness. Western journalists were particularly enraged by this plague. "It is simply impossible to report when you can't see an inch in front of you," complained a frustrated Andrea Koppel of CNN. "I have heard from my reliable Egyptian contacts that in the midst of the blanket of blackness,... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Egyptian Lawyer to Sue Jews for Biblical 'Plunder' |
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· 09/11/2003 10:21:57 AM PDT · · Posted by jern · · 20 replies · 244+ views · · Reuters · · Sept. 11, 2003 · · Opheera McDoom · |
Lawyer to Sue Jews for Biblical 'Plunder' 2 hours, 57 minutes ago Add Oddly Enough - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Opheera McDoom CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian lawyer said Wednesday he was planning to sue the world's Jews for "plundering" gold during the Exodus from Pharaonic Egypt thousands of years ago, based on information in the Bible. Nabil Hilmi, dean of the law faculty at Egypt's al-Zaqaziq University, said the legal basis for the case was under study by a group of lawyers in Egypt and Europe. "This is serious, and should not be misread as being political against... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Ancient Jewish manuscripts reveal a forgotten history |
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· 01/01/2011 5:56:24 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 20 replies · · Past Horizons · · Saturday, January 1, 2011 · · unattributed · |
The study by Cambridge University researchers suggests that, contrary to long-accepted views, Jews continued to use a Greek version of the Bible in synagogues for centuries longer than previously thought. In some places, the practice continued almost until living memory. The Cairo Genizah was not an archive designed to preserve documents. It was a "receptacle," a final resting place or cache of "trashed" documents written in Hebrew or transliterated into Hebrew text, Arabic and other languages during the Middle Ages. The Ben-Ezra Synagogue in Cairo systematically disposed of deceased persons' documents in a special vaulted room in the attic of... |
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| Star of the East | |
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| In Search of Herod's Tomb |
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· 01/02/2011 5:26:06 PM PST · · Posted by STD · · 38 replies · · Biblical Archeological Review · · 10/25/10 · · By Ehud Netzer · |
On October 25, 2010, archaeologist and friend Ehud Netzer fell while working at Herodium, injuring his neck and back. He died from his injuries two days later. Obituary. -- Ed. During the 38 years since I began working at Herodium, Herod's luxurious desert retreat, this architectural masterpiece has yielded many treasures, but none more exciting than the 2007 discovery of Herod's elusive tomb. Some still question this identification, but more recent discoveries confirm my initial conclusion. Today, I have no doubt of it. |
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| OU Professor Says Ancient Text Reveals Startling Information About Magi, Star of Bethlehem |
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· 12/26/2010 4:50:11 PM PST · · Posted by marshmallow · · 124 replies · 7+ views · · News Oklahoma · · 12/25/10 · · Carla Hinton · |
University of Oklahoma professor and Harvard grad Brent Landau's new book "Revelation of the Magi: The Lost Tale of the Wise Men's Journey to Bethlehem" reveals startling details about the Magi and star of Bethlehem. -- Many Christians can recite the basics of the Christmas story, complete with the account of the three wise men from the East following a bright star to Bethlehem. It's essentially saying that the people who recognized the significance of Jesus were not just Jews but people from a totally different culture and a totally different religious system. One of the points I made in... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| The 'Mad' Egyptian Scholar Who Proved Aristotle Wrong |
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· 01/07/2011 5:39:21 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 10 replies · · ScienceDaily · · Thursday, January 6, 2011 · · Institute of Physics et al · |
January's Physics World features a fanciful re-imagining of the 10-year period in the life of the medieval Muslim polymath, written by Los Angeles-based science writer Jennifer Ouellette... In 11th-century Egypt, Aristotle's ancient thought that visible objects and our own eyes emit rays of light to enable our vision still held... As Ouellette writes, "This is a work of fiction -- a fanciful re-imagining of a 10-year period in the life of Ibn al-Haytham, considered by many historians to be the father of modern optics. Living at the height of the golden age of Arabic science, al-Haytham developed an early version... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| Prince Madoc and the Discovery of America |
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· 01/06/2011 9:51:05 PM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 62 replies · · BBC · · 11 Oct 2010 · · Phil Carradice · |
Who discovered America? It's a simple question and one that usually brings the standard response - Christopher Columbus. But here in Wales we have our own theory. And that theory says that America was actually discovered 300 years before Columbus sailed "the ocean blue" in 1492 - and more importantly, that it was discovered by a Welshman. Mandan Indians used Bull Boats for transport and fishing that are identical to the Welsh coracle. The man in question was Prince Madoc, the son of Owain Gwynedd, one of the greatest and most important rulers in the country, and while the legend... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Glasses Are Hoisted Once Again at Fraunces Tavern |
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· 01/07/2011 7:06:52 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 22 replies · · NY Times Blog · · January 6, 2011 · · Diane Cardwell · |
It may be almost a year later than originally expected, but Fraunces Tavern, where Gen. George Washington bade farewell to his officers at the end of the Revolutionary War and where patrons have been eating and drinking on and off since 1762, has finally taken a big leap forward in its reincarnation. The bar, operated by an Irish outfit called the Porterhouse Group, opened last night for the first time since closing in February, attracting a mellow crowd of industry insiders, people who worked on the project and longtime patrons drawn to the place's sense of history... |
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| Early America | |
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| Divers: 1811 wreck of Perry ship discovered off RI |
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· 01/07/2011 10:33:21 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 11 replies · · hosted · · Jan 7 · · Michelle R. Smith · |
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- A team of divers say they've discovered the remains of the USS Revenge, a ship commanded by U.S. Navy hero Oliver Hazard Perry and wrecked off Rhode Island in 1811. Perry is known for defeating the British in the 1813 Battle of Lake Erie off the shores of Ohio, Michigan and Ontario in the War of 1812 and for the line "I have met the enemy and they are ours." His battle flag bore the phrase "Don't give up the ship," and to this day is a symbol of the Navy. |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Faces of the Civil War |
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· 01/08/2011 6:13:36 AM PST · · Posted by real saxophonist · · 3 replies · · History.com · |
Faces of the Civil War Previous Next 1 of 28 . Faces of the Civil War: The Library of Congress recently acquired a rare collection of nearly 700 Civil War-era ambrotype and tintype photographs, donated by the Liljenquist family. The collection includes photographs of Union and Confederate soldiers, as well as the women and children they left behind. (Photo Credit: Library of Congress) |
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| The Great War | |
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| Breakthrough as DNA identifies WW1 soldier |
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· 09/15/2007 8:33:55 PM PDT · · Posted by DancesWithCats · · 28 replies · 757+ views · · London Daily Telegraph · · Sept 16, 2007 · · DancesWithCats · |
By Jasper Copping Last Updated: 1:29am BST 16/09/2007 He was a young man, like so many others, who fell on the battlefield at Passchendaele. Aged just 29, Private Jack Hunter died in the arms of his younger brother, Jim, who buried him there, on the front line, in a shallow grave. Jack Hunter, who died at Passchendaele, with his brother Jim Jack Hunter, who died in the first world war, with his brother Jim Once the guns had fallen silent, Jim returned to look for his brother's body, but the ground had been chewed up by artillery and he could... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Farewell to the Soldier Who Found Hitler's Will |
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· 01/02/2011 7:31:40 AM PST · · Posted by SJackson · · 23 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 1-2-11 · · Chana Ya'ar · |
The Jewish U.S. soldier who was instrumental in finding Adolf Hitler's last will and testament during World War II has died at the age of 86. Arnold Hans Weiss -- born Hans Arnold Wangersheim -- a banker and attorney who lived in Chevy Chase, Maryland, died of pneumonia. His wife predeceased him in 2005; he is survived by two sons and three grandchildren. Weiss played a pivotal role in the final days of the war as a member of a counter-intelligence unit. Together with a British intelligence officer and historian, and a second U.S. intelligence agent, Weiss helped track down... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| US Congress 1939 records foreign Arab immigration into 'vacant land' of Palestine |
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· 01/06/2011 6:46:29 PM PST · · Posted by PRePublic · · 15 replies · · US Congress [Free Israel Now, blog] · |
The following is a remarkable speech given in 1939 by John William McCormack (1891 - 1980) of Massachusetts, Representative to the House, on a 'Jewish Homeland' in Palestine. Protesting harshly the British (White Papers) restriction on Jewish immigration while Arab immigration is allowed to flow. Citing the great approval by 5 presidents and an array of high officials all praising the great achievement done by the Jews in Palestine, uplifting and up-building the land. He notices the Arab immigration of at least 150,000 (equal to that of the Jews') from neighboring countries as well as an overall rise in Arab... |
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| Pages | |
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| The Case of the First Mystery Novelist |
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· 01/07/2011 2:18:26 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 4 replies · · New York Times · · 1/7/2010 · |
Every detective tale needs a red herring, and I had mine: What if I pursued the author of "Velvet Lawn" instead? I found that just one other work, an earlier and unpublished one, shared the same title. It was written by . . . Benjamin Disraeli. The novelist and prime minister was an intriguing suspect: authors are loath to leave good titles unused, and Saunders, Otley published some of Disraeli's books. His political career also gave him good reason for a pseudonym. Yet the mystery's style didn't match his, and it's unmentioned in his copious correspondence. I had a motive,... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Don Rogers: Media more slave than master |
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· 01/01/2011 5:48:28 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · Summit Daily News · · Saturday, January 1, 2011 · · Don Rogers · |
In "Annual Editions: Archaeology (2010)," of all places, I stumbled across this: "Today the mass media is the major source of epistemology in the modern world, and it underscores cultural values and also creates cultural myths by which all humans are made to live. The media is as much a response to our demands as we are to its manipulations. ... But the media mind is characterized by fuzzy thinking and skepticism." Love it! Even misusing the word "epistemology" where I'm reasonably sure they meant to simply say "knowledge" (rather than "study of knowledge," which doesn't really make sense in... |
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| end of digest #338 20110108 | |
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