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· Saturday, January 15, 2011 · 16 topics · 2657396 to 2653433 · 763 members · |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #339 Saturday, January 15, 2011 |
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| Climate | |
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| Russian team prepares to penetrate Lake Vostok |
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· 01/09/2011 8:43:41 AM PST · · Posted by BenLurkin · · 32 replies · · wired · · 07 January 11 · · Duncan Geere · |
Lake Vostok, which has been sealed off from the world for 14 million years, is about to be penetrated by a Russian drill bit. The lake, which lies four kilometres below the icy surface of Antarctica, is unique in that it's been completely isolated from the other 150 subglacial lakes on the continent for such a long time. It's also oligotropic, meaning that it's supersaturated with oxygen -- levels of the element are 50 times higher than those found in most typical freshwater lakes. Since 1990, the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute in St Petersberg in Russia has been drilling... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Climate Changes Linked to Fall of Roman Empire |
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· 01/14/2011 5:02:29 AM PST · · Posted by Oldeconomybuyer · · 41 replies · · Discovery News · · January 14, 2011 · · By Emily Sohn · |
A prolonged period of wet weather spurred the spread of the Bubonic plague in medieval times, according to a new study. And a 300-year spell of unpredictable weather coincided with the decline of the Roman Empire. Climate change wasn't necessarily the cause of these and other major historical events, researchers say. But the study offers the most detailed picture yet of how climate and society have been intertwined for millennia. Again and again, the data suggest, climate has impacted culture in dramatic ways. Unusually extreme and frequent shifts in weather patterns between 250 and 550, for example, coincided with a... |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Dying young did not cause Neanderthals' demise |
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· 01/10/2011 3:37:03 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 24 replies · · AFP · · January 10, 2011 · · Unknown · |
WASHINGTON (AFP) -- Dying young was not likely the reason Neanderthals went extinct, said a study out Monday that suggests early modern humans had about the same life expectancy as their hairier, ancient cousins. Scientists have puzzled over why the Neanderthals disappeared just as modern humans were making huge gains and moving into new parts of Africa and Europe, and some have speculated that a difference in longevity may have been to blame. If anything, higher fertility rates and lower infant mortality gave modern humans an advantage over the Neanderthals, who died off about 30,000 years ago, said the study... |
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| The Neanderthal Nose Enigma: Why So Big? |
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· 01/14/2011 4:16:53 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 50 replies · · Live Science · · January 14, 2011 · · Charles Q. Choi · |
A mystery of Neanderthals for more than a century is one that's literally as plain as the noses on their faces - why did they have such big schnozes? One common answer suggests their faces somehow helped our extinct relatives deal with the extreme cold they faced. Now, however, scientists find that Neanderthal faces were not built for the cold - meaning that no one still knows why Neanderthals had such noses. The enigma that such a large nose poses is that it seems like an excellent way to lose heat - a paradox, given that Neanderthals lived when glaciers... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Secrets of the stones (Amazing Discovery in Australia!) |
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· 03/18/2003 6:22:49 AM PST · · Posted by vannrox · · 35 replies · 785+ views · · SMH(ABC's Catalyst program) · · March 13 2003 · · Graham Phillips · |
Secrets of the stones March 13 2003 For nearly 8000 years, the Gunditjmara people of western Victoria farmed eels. They modified more than 100 square kilometres of the landscape, constructing artificial ponds across the grassy wetlands and digging channels to interconnect them. They exported their produce and became an important part of the local economy. And then white settlers arrived and all they left of the Gunditjmara's thriving industry were several hundred piles of stones that had formed the foundations to the people's huts. Since the 1970s, archaeologists have suspected that the stone remains in the Lake Condah region were... |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| Ancient farmers swiftly spread westward |
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· 01/15/2011 7:18:08 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 1 replies · · Science News · · January 29th, 2011 · · Bruce Bower · |
Croatia does not have a reputation as a hotbed of ancient agriculture. But new excavations, described January 7 in San Antonio at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, unveil a Mediterranean Sea-hugging strip of southern Croatia as a hub for early farmers who spread their sedentary lifestyle from the Middle East into Europe. Farming villages sprouted swiftly in this coastal region, called Dalmatia, nearly 8,000 years ago, apparently with the arrival of Middle Easterners already adept at growing crops and herding animals, says archaeologist Andrew Moore of Rochester Institute of Technology in New York... Plant cultivation and... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| At 6,000 years old, wine press is oldest yet found |
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· 01/11/2011 10:39:07 AM PST · · Posted by La Lydia · · 36 replies · · Yahoo News · · January 11, 2011 · · Maggie Fox · |
Archeologists have unearthed the oldest wine-making facility ever found, using biochemical techniques to identify a dry red vintage made about 6,000 years ago in what is now southern Armenia. The excavation paints a picture of a complex society where mourners tasted a special vintage made at a caveside cemetery, the researchers reported on Tuesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science. "This is the world's oldest known installation to make wine," Gregory Areshian of the University of California Los Angeles, who helped lead the study, said ... Carbon dating showed a desiccated grape vine found near a wine press was grown... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Is there a genius in all of us? |
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· 01/13/2011 3:39:14 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 33 replies · · BBC · · January 12, 2011 · · David Shenk · |
Where do athletic and artistic abilities come from? With phrases like "gifted musician", "natural athlete" and "innate intelligence", we have long assumed that talent is a genetic thing some of us have and others don't. But new science suggests the source of abilities is much more interesting and improvisational. It turns out that everything we are is a developmental process and this includes what we get from our genes. A century ago, geneticists saw genes as robot actors, always uttering the same lines in exactly the same way, and much of the public is still stuck with this old idea.... |
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| Megaliths & Archaeoastronomy | |
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| Effective use of power in the Bronze Age societies of Central Europe |
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· 01/11/2011 7:00:06 AM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · · University of Gothenburg · · January 11, 2011 · · Unknown · |
During the first part of the Bronze Age in the Carpathian Basin in Central Europe, a large proportion of the population lived in what are known as tell-building societies. A thesis in archaeology from the University of Gothenburg shows that the leaders of these societies had the ability to combine several sources of power in an effective way in order to dominate the rest of the population, which contributed towards creating a notably stable social system. Tell-building societies are named after a distinct form of settlements with a high density of population and construction, which over the course of time... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Egypt Threatens Removal of Ancient Central Park Obelisk |
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· 01/08/2011 3:58:28 PM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 44 replies · · livescience · · 06 January 2011 · · Andrea Leontiou · |
Since 1881, the obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle has stood in New York's Central Park, but a letter from the secretary general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities indicates that this may change if the monument is not taken better care of. Recently, Zahi Hawass, the aforementioned secretary general and archaeologist, wrote to the Central Park Conservancy and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to inform them that if steps are not taken to protect the obelisk, it would be removed. "I am glad that this monument has become such an integral part of New York City, but I am... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Today in History January 14th 1784 Revolutionary War ends; Congress ratifies Treaty of Paris |
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· 01/14/2011 4:14:24 PM PST · · Posted by mdittmar · · 5 replies · · various · · January 14th 2011 · · various · |
The Definitive Treaty of Peace 1783 In the name of the most holy and undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch- treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc., and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which they mutually wish to restore, and to... |
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| The War of 1812 | |
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| 196 Years Ago - The American Agincourt and Thermopylae |
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· 01/08/2011 7:45:49 AM PST · · Posted by SES1066 · · 25 replies · · Self · · 01/08/2011 · · Self · |
Like so many other things in history, the further back that they are, the more we take them for granted. In this case, it would be a mistake to not reflect upon this 196th Anniversary of the "Battle of New Orleans" and the fact that it could be referred to as the United States' "Agincourt". The British military intent in the "War of 1812" was to emasculate their former North American Colonies by shutting off their abilities to trade with the rest of the world. The British were flush from completing the defeat of Napoleon and had the experienced and... |
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| The War of 1812 revisited |
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· 09/28/2007 7:17:34 AM PDT · · Posted by Squawk 8888 · · 160 replies · 739+ views · · National Post · · September 28, 2007 · · Chris Wattie · |
As early preparations for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 get underway in Canada and the United States, organizers in Canada have run into an unexpected hitch: Their American counterparts seem to think they won. The historical disconnect between American and Canadian interpretations of the war, during which tens of thousands of American troops invaded Canada - then still a British colony - and were repulsed by the outnumbered defenders, has left Canadian organizers of the bicentennial events shaking their heads in bemusement at their American colleagues' staunch insistence that the war was a victory for the then-young... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Mammoth 'could be reborn in four years' |
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· 01/13/2011 7:32:15 PM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 75 replies · · Telegraph [UK] · · 1/13/11 · · Julian Ryall · |
The woolly mammoth, extinct for thousands of years, could be brought back to life in as little as four years thanks to a breakthrough in cloning technology. Previous efforts in the 1990s to recover nuclei in cells from the skin and muscle tissue from mammoths found in the Siberian permafrost failed because they had been too badly damaged by the extreme cold. But a technique pioneered in 2008 by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama, of the Riken Centre for Developmental Biology, was successful in cloning a mouse from the cells of another mouse that had been frozen for 16 years. |
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| Mammoth 'could be reborn in four years' |
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· 01/14/2011 12:08:20 AM PST · · Posted by bogusname · · 33 replies · · The Telegraph · · 13 Jan 2011 · · Julian Ryall · |
The woolly mammoth, extinct for thousands of years, could be brought back to life in as little as four years thanks to a breakthrough in cloning technology. |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Fossil fuels age debate (560 million year old vertebrate) |
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· 10/22/2003 6:31:11 AM PDT · · Posted by dead · · 68 replies · 604+ views · · Sydney Morning Herald · · October 22, 2003 · |
A fossil, believed to be the oldest vertebrate ever found, has been uncovered in South Australia. The five-centimetre fossil, which looks like an elongated tadpole and is believed to be at least 560 million years old, was unearthed in sandstone by station owner Ross Fargher at a secret location in SA's Flinders Ranges. The SA Museum today said the fossil was part of a marine animal known as the Ediacara Chordate. The Ediacara Chordate discovered in South Australia.Photo: South Australian Museum A fin on its back, a set of inclined muscle bars and a head were clearly visible, the museum... |
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| end of digest #339 20110115 | |
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· Saturday, January 15, 2011 · 16 topics · 2657396 to 2653433 · 763 members · |
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Saturday |
Happy New Year! |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #340 Saturday, January 8, 2011 |
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| Brewing | |
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| Reviving the taste of an Iron Age beer [ancient Celtic malt beverage] |
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· 01/18/2011 6:27:27 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 34 replies · · Science News · · Friday, January 14th, 2011 · · Bruce Bower · |
At the Celtic site, barley was soaked in the specially constructed ditches until it sprouted, Stika proposes. Grains were then dried by lighting fires at the ends of the ditches, giving the malt a smoky taste and a darkened color. Lactic acid bacteria stimulated by slow drying of soaked grains, a well-known phenomenon, added sourness to the brew. Unlike modern beers that are flavored with flowers of the hop plant, the Eberdingen-Hochdorf brew probably contained spices such as mugwort, carrot seeds or henbane, in Stika's opinion. Beer makers are known to have used these additives by medieval times. Excavations at... |
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| Agriculture & Animal Husbandry | |
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| Livestock and people in a Middle Chalcolithic settlement... |
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· 01/18/2011 7:02:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · · Antiquity · · Vol 84:326, 2010 pp 1123-1134 · · Emily M. Hubbard · |
Round and rectangular buildings with grain silos at a Copper Age site in Israel suggested social stratification to the excavators. Using micromorphology, the author demonstrates that while the rectangular building was occupied by people, the round ones had contained animals, perhaps as providers of milk, and dung for fuel. While this removes the direct indication of social variance, it strengthens the argument that animals, as well as grain, formed the basis for the creation of surplus. |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Remains Of Oldest Fruit Trees In Iberian Peninsula Found |
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· 01/18/2011 6:31:05 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 12 replies · · Arch News · · Friday, January 14, 2011 · · Stephen Russell · |
This research has enabled the recording of numerous fleshy fruits such as plums of various types, cherries, peaches, sloes, grapes, apples, figs, quince and medlar and, in a token manner, olives. The overall collection of nuts is interesting, significant being the presence of hazel nuts, acorns, walnuts, pine kernels and, sporadically, beechnuts. As regards cereals, wheat, barley and oats have been identified. Also of particular important are the various seeds of the bottle (or calabash) gourd, a species of water pumpkin, very rarely recorded in archaeological contexts. |
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| Climate | |
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| BBC:Roman Rise, Fall 'Recorded in Trees' (Climate Change Led to Fall of Empire) |
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· 01/16/2011 9:19:55 AM PST · · Posted by lbryce · · 60 replies · · BBC News · · January 14, 2010 · · Mark Kinver · |
An extensive study of tree growth rings says there could be a link between the rise and fall of past civilisations and sudden shifts in Europe's climate. A team of researchers based their findings on data from 9,000 wooden artifacts from the past 2,500 years. They found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity, while political turmoil occurred during times of climate instability. The findings have been published online by the journal Science. "Looking back on 2,500 years, there are examples where climate change impacted human history," co-author Ulf Buntgen, a paleoclimatologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute... |
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| Fall of Rome Recorded in Trees |
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· 01/18/2011 10:49:18 PM PST · · Posted by neverdem · · 38 replies · · ScienceNOW · · 13 January 2011 · · Andrew Curry · |
Enlarge Image Preserved. Climate changes recorded in tree rings correlate with important events in European history, such as the Black Death. Credit: Wikimedia When empires rise and fall and plagues sweep over the land, people have traditionally cursed the stars. But perhaps they should blame the weather. A new analysis of European tree-ring samples suggests that mild summers may have been the key to the rise of the Roman Empire‚Ä"and that prolonged droughts, cold snaps, and other climate changes might have played a part in historical upheavals, from the barbarian invasions that brought about Rome's collapse to the Black... |
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| Roman Empire | |
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| Caligula Statue Hints at Lavish Villa |
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· 01/18/2011 5:43:53 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 43 replies · · Discovery News · · Tuesday, January 18, 2011 · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
Italian police might have found intriguing evidence pointing to the long-lost villa of the incestuous and lunatic emperor Caligula, according to a report by the Italian daily Corriere della Sera. The special art squad police arrested last week near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, a man trying to load part of an eight-foot-tall statue onto his truck... Thought to be worth about $1.6 million, the statue would represent Caligula sitting on the throne as the god Jupiter, supporting the theory that the insane and capricious emperor, who is said to have made his favorite horse Incitatus a senator, believed himself... |
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| Caligula's tomb found after police arrest man trying to smuggle statue |
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· 01/18/2011 6:29:08 PM PST · · Posted by Red Badger · · 15 replies · · Guardian UK · · Mon 17 Jan 2011 20.10 GMT · · Tom Kington in Rome · |
Police arrest tomb raider loading part of 2.5 metre statue into lorry near Lake Nemi, south of Rome, where Caligula had a villa. The lost tomb of Caligula has been found, according to Italian police, after the arrest of a man trying to smuggle abroad a statue of the notorious Roman emperor recovered from the site After reportedly sleeping with his sisters, killing for pleasure and seeking to appoint his horse a consul during his rule from AD37 to 41, Caligula was described by contemporaries as insane With many of Caligula's monuments destroyed after he was killed by his Praetorian... |
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| On the Same Page | |
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| Forget Mars and Venus: men and woman are on the same planet |
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· 01/17/2011 3:08:57 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 24 replies · · Telegraph.co.uk · · December 30, 2010 · · Richard Alleyne · |
The 20th century adage that "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" is a myth, according to new research suggesting that our brains are wired exactly the same way when it comes to love. The self-help bestseller, published in 1992, suggested that when it came to relationships men and women thought and acted very differently -- in other words it was as if they came from different planets. But new scientific research shows we actually act very similarly when we are in love -- whether we are male, female, heterosexual or homosexual. Professor Semir Zeki and John Romaya at... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Museum of Science explores science, concept of race (race doesn't exist, according to Liberals) |
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· 01/20/2011 11:23:52 AM PST · · Posted by pabianice · · 27 replies · · MetroWest Daily · · 1/20/11 · · Bergeron · |
"...Combining scientific, anthropological and historical evidence, the exhibit argues the fundamental concept of race and racial differences has no biological basis but is a man-made distinction with immeasurable social consequences over the centuries. Developed by the American Anthropological Association and Science Museum of Minnesota, "Race" invites visitors to examine race and racism through exhibits, interactive stations and artifacts..." |
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| Prehistory & Origins | |
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| The 30,000 Year Old Cave that Descends into Hell |
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· 01/21/2011 2:53:23 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 57 replies · · Gizmodo · · 1-20-2011 · · Jesus Diaz · |
There's a cave in France where no humans have been in 26,000 years. The walls are full of fantastic, perfectly-preserved paintings of animals, ending in a chamber full of monsters 1312-feet underground, where CO2 and radon gas concentrations provoke hallucinations. It's called the the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, a really weird and mysterious place. The walls contain hundreds of animals -- like the typical Paleolithic horses and bisons -- but some of them are not supposed to be there, like lions, panthers, rhinos and hyenas. A few are not even supposed to exist, like weird butterflyish animals or chimerical figures half bison half woman. These may... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| 34,000-year-old bacteria discovered...and it's still alive |
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· 01/19/2011 5:36:07 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · · Christian Science Monitor · · January 13, 2011 · · Andrea Mustain · |
Salt crystals grow very quickly, imprisoning whatever happens to be floating -- or living -- nearby inside tiny bubbles just a few microns across, akin to naturally made, miniature snow-globes... Lowenstein said new research indicates this process occurs in modern saline lakes, further backing up Schubert's astounding discovery, which was first revealed about a year ago... Schubert, now an assistant researcher at the University of Hawaii, said the bacteria -- a salt-loving sort still found on Earth today -- were shrunken and small, and suspended in a kind of hibernation state... The key to the microbes' millennia-long survival may be... |
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| Brick (dah dah dah dah) House | |
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| A New Way to Date Old Ceramics |
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· 01/19/2011 2:49:11 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 16 replies · · Michigan Tech News · · January 10, 2011 · · Marcia Goodrich · |
Patrick Bowen, a senior majoring in materials science and engineering at Michigan Technological University, is refining a new way of dating ceramic artifacts that could one day shave thousands of dollars off the cost of doing archaeological research. Called rehydroxylation dating, the technique was recently developed by researchers at the University of Manchester and the University of Edinburgh. It takes advantage of ceramics' predictable tendency to bond chemically with water over time. ...First, dry the sample at 105 degrees Celcius. This removes any dampness that the ceramic might have absorbed. Then, weigh the sample and put it in a furnace... |
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| The Greeks | |
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| 2,100 year-old Greek coin may have marked rare astronomical event |
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· 01/17/2011 9:57:11 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 36 replies · · Unreported Heritage News · · Friday, January 14, 2011 · · Owen Jarus · |
New research suggests that this coin marks an eclipse of Jupiter by the moon. It happened on January 17, 121 BC and was visible in Antioch, the capital of the Seleucid Empire. The coin itself show Zeus with a crescent moon above his head and a star like object hovering above the palm of his right hand... On one side is a portrait of Antiochos VIII, the king who minted it. On the reverse is a depiction of Zeus, either nude or half-draped, holding a sceptre in his left hand. Above the god's head is the crescent of the moon,... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| King James Bible: How it changed the way we speak (and how it didn't) |
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· 01/17/2011 4:13:05 PM PST · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · · BBC · · January 17, 2011 · · Unknown · |
The impact of the King James Bible, which was published 400 years ago, is still being felt in the way we speak and write, says Stephen Tomkins.No other book, or indeed any piece of culture, seems to have influenced the English language as much as the King James Bible. Its turns of phrase have permeated the everyday language of English speakers, whether or not they've ever opened a copy. The Sun says Aston Villa "refused to give up the ghost". Wendy Richard calls her EastEnders character Pauline Fowler "the salt of the earth". The England cricket coach tells reporters, "You... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Who Invented the Alphabet: The Semites or the Greeks? |
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· 01/17/2011 6:27:27 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 49 replies · · Archaeolgy Odyssey · · Winter 1998 · · Barry B. Powell · |
I would make the startling suggestion that the alphabet was invented by a single human being, who created this remarkable technology to record the Greek hexameters of the poet we call Homer. Certainly everyone agrees that the invention of the alphabet made possible the development of philosophy, science and democracy, some of the finest achievements in the history of human culture. But who invented the alphabet? Was it really the Semitic-speaking Phoenicians, as many of us learned in grammar school? Or was it actually the Greeks, to whom the Phoenicians supposedly passed it? I don't believe the Phoenicians actually had... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| A Is for Ancient, Describing an Alphabet Found Near Jerusalem |
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· 11/09/2005 10:22:28 AM PST · · Posted by Sabramerican · · 18 replies · 919+ views · · New York Times · · November 9, 2005 · · John Noble Wilford · |
In the 10th century B.C., in the hill country south of Jerusalem, a scribe carved his A B C's on a limestone boulder - actually, his aleph-beth-gimel's, for the string of letters appears to be an early rendering of the emergent Hebrew alphabet. Archaeologists digging in July at the site, Tel Zayit, found the inscribed stone in the wall of an ancient building. After an analysis of the layers of ruins, the discoverers concluded that this was the earliest known specimen of the Hebrew alphabet and... |
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| Asia | |
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| Co Loa: an investigation of Vietnam's ancient capital |
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· 01/18/2011 7:04:57 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · Antiquity · · Vol 84:326, 2010 pp 1011-1027 · · Nam C. Kim, Lai Van Toi, Trinh Hoang Hiep · |
History, legend and memory have long pointed to Co Loa, an earthwork enclosure outside Hanoi, as the seat of an indigenous power that gave identity to the people of the Bac Bo region, north Vietnam. Survey, excavation and a set of radiocarbon dates now put this site on the historical map. The main rampart of the middle circuit was built in the later centuries BC, before the coming of Han Imperial China. Nor was this rampart the first defence. The authors show the potential of archaeology for revealing the creation and development of a polity among the prosperous people of... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Did the ancient Egyptians know of pygmy mammoths? Well, there is that tomb painting. |
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· 01/20/2011 6:38:56 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 22 replies · · Tetrapod Zoology · · 19 Jan 2011 · · Darren Naish · |
One of the things that came up in the many comments appended to the article on Bob's painting of extinct Maltese animals was the famous Egyptian tomb painting of the 'pygmy mammoth'. You're likely already familiar with this (now well known) case: here's the image, as it appears on the beautifully decorated tomb wall of Rekhmire, 'Governor of the Town' of Thebes, and vizier of Egypt during the reigns of Tuthmose III and Amenhotep II (c. 1479 to 1401 BCE) during the XVIII dynasty... In 1994, Baruch Rosen published a brief article in Nature in which he drew attention to... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| Researchers aim to resurrect mammoth in five years |
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· 01/17/2011 7:17:28 PM PST · · Posted by Germanicus Cretorian · · 62 replies · · Yahoo/AFP · · Jan. 17 · · Shingo Ito · |
Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time. The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. "Preparations to realise this goal have been made," Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily. Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an elephant's egg cell... |
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| Researchers aim to resurrect Mammoth in five years |
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· 01/18/2011 8:21:13 AM PST · · Posted by Scythian · · 48 replies · · YahooNews · |
TOKYO (AFP) -- Japanese researchers will launch a project this year to resurrect the long-extinct mammoth by using cloning technology to bring the ancient pachyderm back to life in around five years time. The researchers will try to revive the species by obtaining tissue this summer from the carcass of a mammoth preserved in a Russian research laboratory, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. "Preparations to realise this goal have been made," Akira Iritani, leader of the team and a professor emeritus of Kyoto University, told the mass-circulation daily. Under the plan, the nuclei of mammoth cells will be inserted into an... |
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| Blackbeard's Sword? |
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· 01/17/2011 3:51:15 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 41 replies · · National Geographic Society · · January 12, 2011 · · Willie Drye · |
Could this partly gilded hilt have held Blackbeard's sword? There's no way to know for sure, though it was found amid the North Carolina wreck of the Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of the infamous 18th-century pirate... After running aground on a sandbar in 1718 near the town of Beaufort, the ship was abandoned but likely remained intact and partly above water for as long as a year before collapsing and disintegrating... The newfound hilt may have been left behind because it was unwanted, or it may have been inaccessible, according to Moore's colleague Wendy Welsh, a conservator on the... |
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| The General | |
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| George Washington: The Reluctant President |
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· 01/20/2011 8:29:26 AM PST · · Posted by Palter · · 6 replies · · Smithsonian Magazine · · Feb 2011 · · Ron Chernow · |
It seemed as if everyone rejoiced at the election of our first chief executive except the man himself Even as the Constitution was being ratified, Americans looked toward a figure of singular probity to fill the new office of the presidency. On February 4, 1789, the 69 members of the Electoral College made George Washington the only chief executive to be unanimously elected. Congress was supposed to make the choice official that March but could not muster a quorum until April. The reason -- bad roads -- suggests the condition of the country Washington would lead. In a new biography, Washington: A Life, Ron... |
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| Pages | |
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| War in the Wilderness [Book Review of George Washington's First War] |
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· 01/20/2011 5:29:35 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 29 replies · · Wall St Journal · · Jan 20, 2011 · · Stephen Brumwell · |
A callow youngster's thirst for honor triggered the Seven Years' War. Unlike many of his fellow Founding Fathers, George Washington never wrote an autobiography...His sole effort at memoir emerged from notes he wrote clarifying points for a proposed biography by a former aide and trusted friend, David Humphreys. These "Remarks" were written in 1787-88, when Washington was in his mid-50s and pondering the daunting prospect of becoming the first president....Washington chose to reminisce about the five years when he had labored as a loyal subject of the British Empire to thwart French designs on the Ohio Valley. In late 1753,... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Meigs native recounts controversy over battle [WV] |
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· 01/21/2011 5:55:54 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 31 replies · · Parkersburg News and Sentinel · · January 21, 2011 · · Jess Mancini · |
PARKERSBURG - A Meigs County native has written a book about the Battle of Point Pleasant and whether it was the first fought in the Revolutionary War. Charles S. Badgley of the Badgley Publishing Co., Canal Winchester, Ohio, says he often heard while growing up along the river in Meigs County that the battle was the first in the war, the basis of his most recent novel, "A Point of Controversy." Conventional wisdom was the battles of Lexington and Concord in 1775 were the first in the war of independence. "The controversy has been around a long time, it actually... |
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| Give back Valley Forge, Rendell says |
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· 12/21/2005 4:39:42 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 54 replies · 1,327+ views · · Philadelphia Inquirer · · Dec. 21, 2005 · · Nancy Petersen · |
Maintenance complaints and obstacles to a new museum prompted his letter to the Interior Department. In 1976, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sold Valley Forge State Park to the federal government for $1. Now the state may want it back. Angry over inadequate maintenance and the federal government's failure to approve plans for a new museum at Valley Forge National Historical Park, Gov. Rendell wrote to Interior Secretary Gale Norton last week offering a do-over. If the United States "is unwilling or unable to protect and preserve Valley Forge... the commonwealth is prepared to accept that responsibility," Rendell wrote. "One option... |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Amazing Original Photographs from the Civil War |
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· 01/19/2011 3:36:51 PM PST · · Posted by navysealdad · · 29 replies · · Angelfire · |
These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. |
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| Amazing Original Photographs from the Civil War |
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· 06/28/2010 6:26:36 PM PDT · · Posted by navysealdad · · 69 replies · 3+ views · · Angelfire · |
Whether you like history or not... These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. Probably a million wet plate photos were made during the civil war on glass plate. Popular during the war, they lost their appeal afterwards and so many were sold for the glass. |
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| Original Photographs from the Civil War |
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· 03/21/2010 2:21:48 PM PDT · · Posted by navysealdad · · 29 replies · 1,527+ views · · Angelfire · |
These are pretty amazing considering they were taken up to 145 years ago: A compendium of photos from the Civil War era. Truly fortunate that so many of these have survived. Probably a million wet plate photos were made during the civil war on glass plate. Popular during the war, they lost their appeal afterwards and so many were sold for the glass. |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Revealed: How even German civilians took part in killing concentration camp survivors |
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· 01/17/2011 2:18:57 PM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 141 replies · · Daily Mail · · 1/17/11 · · Allan Hall · |
A new book about the closing days of WW2 chronicles how German civilians murdered many concentration camp survivors as they moved through their towns and villages on infamous 'death marches' back into the shrinking Reich. The violence shows how even with their nation in ruins, the Allies advancing on all fronts and the war hopeless, ordinary people were so indoctrinated with Nazi hate they were prepared to kill defenceless people in cold blood. |
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| Obituary | |
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| Man who notified world of Pearl Harbor attack dies |
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· 01/18/2011 4:20:20 PM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 12 replies · · hosted · · Jan 18 · |
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) -- Ed Chlapowski, the man who notified the world that Pearl Harbor was being bombed by the Japanese, has died at 88. The former Navy radio man's family said he died Sunday at his home in Billings a few weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. |
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| Sticky, Sticky | |
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| 92nd anniversary of the Great Boston Molasses Flood |
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· 01/19/2011 6:29:25 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 39 replies · · Dateline Zero · · Sunday, January 16, 2011 · · Daniel La Ponsie · |
Yesterday was the 92nd anniversary of one of the strangest tragedies ever to take place on American soil. It's the stuff of Weekly World News or The Onion. Yet it was a very real, deadly, (and delicious) disaster. To this day on hot summer days in an old Boston neighborhood, residents swear that they can smell a vague odor of molasses. It's a sweet-smelling reminder of a day when some 150 people were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed by a sudden flood of molasses... Purity Distilling Company was doing big business. A large quantity of stored molasses... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| New Jersey Historical Society is criticized for selling historical collection in effort to raise funds |
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· 01/15/2011 5:14:47 PM PST · · Posted by Coleus · · 18 replies · · the star ledger · · January 13, 2011 · · Peggy McGlone · |
The New Jersey Historical Society has sold one of its prized possessions -- an incredibly rare, hand-colored map of the United States from 1784 -- because the Newark institution is hard up for cash. But in the museum world, some experts are calling the sale unethical because museums are not supposed to sell their treasures to raise money. The Abel Buell map, which brought in almost $2.1 million at the Christie's auction, was described by a cartography expert as "one of the most coveted of all American maps." It is the first map of United State published in America, the... |
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| end of digest #340 20110122 | |
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