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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #396 Saturday, February 18, 2012 |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| An Ocean of Data: The New Way to Find Sunken Treasure |
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· 02/18/2012 5:51:57 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 2 replies · · Popular Science · · February 9, 2012 · · Brooke Borel · |
As much as Foley likes discovering shipwrecks -- he's found or helped find 26 in the past 14 years -- he doesn't much like spending time looking for them, at least not in the conventional ways. Rather than sending dive teams down to survey 1,000-foot transects one fin kick at a time, Foley prefers to use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) to survey huge tracts of seafloor. Where the robots don't work well, Foley sends down divers armed with closed-circuit rebreathers and thrusters, allowing them to cover more ground. He wants to go faster, he says, because he needs a lot... |
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| Climate | |
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| Was the Northeast Passage first navigated in 1660? (reduced Arctic sea ice then??) |
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· 02/14/2012 6:45:57 PM PST · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 7 replies · · Whats up With That? · · February 13, 2012 · · Anthony Watts · |
If true, it suggests periods of reduced Arctic sea ice during that time that made this feat possible.Reposted from the blog Ecotretas with permission A graphical comparison between the North East Passage (blue) and an alternative route through Suez Canal (red) David Melgueiro, a Portuguese navigator, might have been the first to navigate the Northeast Passage (known now as Northern Sea Route), between 1660 and 1662, more than 200 years before Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, who did it -- in 1878. One of the most detailed accounts for this voyage is given by Eduardo Brazêo in The Corte-Real family and the New... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| The Legendary White-Skinned Cloud People Of Peru |
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· 02/11/2012 11:44:55 AM PST · · Posted by blam · · 44 replies · · The Right Perspective · · 2-11-2012 · |
Archeologists have discovered a 12-acre lost city deep within the Amazon rain forest that may shed light on a long-lost tribe of white-skinned, blonde-haired people known as the Cloud People. The Cloud People, also known in legend as "the white warriors of the clouds" established expansive kingdom located in the northern regions of the Andes in present-day Peru during the ninth century. Bordered by the Maranon and Utcubamba rivers, in the zone of Bagua, their civilzation extended up to the basin of the Abiseo river, and to the very... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| University of Iowa's Center for Book creates paper for national Magna Carta display |
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· 02/10/2012 4:38:21 AM PST · · Posted by iowamark · · 5 replies · · Cedar Rapids Gazette · · 9 February 2012 · · Emily Busse · |
Restored, rare document will go on public display later this month. Starting next week, anyone visiting the U.S. National Archives can gaze at the only original Magna Carta in the United States, thanks, in part, to the work of Iowans. Nestled perfectly beneath the 700-year-old legal document is a sheet of pure white cotton paper, specially made by the University of Iowa's Center for the Book. "Anyone from the state of Iowa can now go to the National Archives rotunda, get in line, wait your turn, and you can literally lean down your face a foot away from [the documents],"... |
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| Pages | |
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| Israeli library uploads Newton's theological texts |
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· 02/16/2012 8:27:00 AM PST · · Posted by fishtank · · 20 replies · · PhysOrg.com · · 2-15-2012 · · Aron Heller · |
Israel's national library, an unlikely owner of a vast trove of Newton's writings, has digitized his theological collection, and put it online. More at the link... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Sheba's wealth |
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· 02/11/2012 8:10:11 PM PST · · Posted by Engraved-on-His-hands · · 15 replies · · The Guardian [UK] · · February 11, 2012 · · Dalya Alberge · |
A British excavation has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba of biblical legend derived her fabled treasures. Almost 3,000 years ago, the ruler of Sheba, which spanned modern-day Ethiopia and Yemen, arrived in Jerusalem with vast quantities of gold to give to King Solomon. Now an enormous ancient goldmine, together with the ruins of a temple and the site of a battlefield, have been discovered in her former territory. Louise Schofield, an archaeologist and former British Museum curator, who headed the excavation on the high Gheralta plateau in northern... |
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| Queen of Sheba's lost gold mine discovered, archaeologist claims |
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· 02/15/2012 1:22:52 PM PST · · Posted by ColdOne · · 8 replies · · 2/15/12 · · newscore · |
A British archaeologist working in northern Ethiopia believes she may have discovered an ancient goldmine that holds clues about where the Queen of Sheba obtained her storied wealth. Louise Schofield, a former curator at the British Museum, told The Observer she was alerted to the mine by a gold prospector while working on an environmental development project in Ethiopia's Tigray region. The shaft, buried some four feet (1.2 meters) underground with an ancient human skull embedded in its entrance, apparently had not attracted much attention, even though locals panned for gold in a nearby river. The site is within the... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Is Israel Giving Jewish Heritage Sites to PA? |
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· 02/14/2012 1:37:14 AM PST · · Posted by Eleutheria5 · · 6 replies · · Arutz Sheva · · 14/2/12 · · Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu · |
The Palestinian Authority wants UNESCO to declare the Patriarchs' Cave and Rachel's Tomb as its heritage sites while Israel is excluding them from its own list. A government committee headed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is meeting Tuesday morning to decide on adding 10 more sites to Israel's official list of heritage sites, but the Bible-based Patriarchs' Cave and Rachel's Tomb are not among them Rabbi-Professor Daniel Hershkowitz, Science and Technology Minister and head of the Jewish Home party, issued an urgent appeal to Cabinet Secretary Tzvi Hauser that the two sites be included. The government committee on heritage sites... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Maldives: Islamists Storm National Museum, Destroy Entire Collection of 12th-Century Buddhist Statues |
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· 02/12/2012 11:30:01 AM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 61 replies · · Weasel Zippers · · 2/12/12 · · zip · |
[Photo] (AFP) -- At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artifacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era. "They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. "We... |
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| Jimmy Crack Crow | |
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| Two decades later, donors wondering what happened to plans for slavery museum (Wilder's reparations) |
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· 02/12/2012 8:36:25 AM PST · · Posted by Second Amendment First · · 25 replies · · Washington Post · · Feb. 12, 2012 · · Susan Svrluga · |
Nearly 20 years ago, former Virginia governor L. Douglas Wilder announced that he wanted to create a museum that would tell the story of slavery in the United States. He had the vision, the clout, the charm to make it seem attainable, and he had already made history: the grandson of slaves, he was the nation's first elected African American governor. He assembled a high-profile board, hosted splashy galas with entertainer Bill Cosby promising at least $1 million in support, accepted a gift of some 38 acres of prime real estate smack along Interstate 95 in Fredericksburg and showed plans... |
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| Grand Old Party | |
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| The GOP's unheralded role in black history |
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· 02/14/2012 11:01:56 PM PST · · Posted by cap10mike · · 20 replies · · BizPacReview.com · · Michael Dorstewitz · |
February may be our shortest month, but it's filled with notable events. This month, we celebrate Groundhog Day, Chinese New Year and Washington's Birthday. We also commemorate President's Day as well as every lover's favorite, Valentine's Day. February has also been reserved as Black History Month. After doing just a little digging, I was struck by the significant role the Republican Party played in not only emancipating slaves in the antebellum South, but also in accepting and elevating them into American society. I was also amazed by how often the Democratic Party thwarted the GOP's efforts. |
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| The Civil War | |
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| Kindergartners know Lincoln speech by heart |
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· 02/12/2012 10:08:41 AM PST · · Posted by Oldeconomybuyer · · 13 replies · · Orange County Register (CA) · · February 11, 2012 · · By Eric Carpenter · |
ANAHEIM -- They adjusted their black-cotton beards and their Lincoln-stovepipe hats that stood almost as tall as them. Then, in unison, the 19 kindergarteners began: "Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent ..." From beginning to end, Room 4 at Fairmont Private School recited from memory the entire Gettysburg Address -- President Lincoln's 1863 speech, widely regarded as among the best speeches in American history. With words such as "endure," "dedicate" and "consecrate." The 5- and 6-year-olds got through them all. Their teacher, Patsy Bauman, began teaching her students the address in December, in... |
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| The Revolution | |
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| Celebrate George Washington's 280th Birthday at His Home, Mount Vernon! |
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· 02/14/2012 7:13:34 AM PST · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 26 replies · · Mt Vernon Estate & Gardens · · via Marketwatch · · Feb. 13, 2012 · · Anon. · |
MOUNT VERNON, Va., Feb. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- George Washington's home, Mount Vernon, celebrates our first president's birthday with three days of special events including an outdoor cooking demonstration by celebrated chefs, a new food exhibition with more than 125 objects from the Washingtons' kitchen, a surprise birthday celebration for "George Washington", book signing with PBS's A Taste of History host Chef Walter Staib, and much more! Saturday and Sunday events are included in Estate admission, and admission to all events on Monday, February 20, events are FREE in honor of George Washington's birthday! Saturday, February 18All events... |
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| Early America | |
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| The Sword of Simón Bolívar |
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· 02/16/2012 6:39:59 AM PST · · Posted by InsightSur · · 16 replies · · InsightSur.com · · February 16, 2012 · · InsightSur Editor · |
His full name is Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Palacios Ponte y Blanco, and his legacy is equally voluminous. Born on July 24, 1783, he was serendipitously raised in an age of revolutions, and was one of the key leaders in the struggle for independence from Spain which spread throughout Latin America. On June 15th, 1813 he dictated his "Decree of War to the Death," and the rest is history. He would go on to lead Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Bolivia to independence from Spain. At one point he was dictator of Peru, president of Colombia,... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| The Monster of Glamis |
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· 02/17/2012 4:40:50 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 13 replies · · Smithsonian magazine · · 2-10-2012 · |
"If you could even guess the nature of this castle's secret," said Claude Bowes-Lyon, 13th Earl of Strathmore, "you would get down on your knees and thank God it was not yours." That awful secret was once the talk of Europe. From perhaps the 1840s until 1905, the Earl's ancestral seat at Glamis Castle, in the Scottish lowlands, was home to a "mystery of mysteries" -- an enigma that involved a hidden room, a secret passage, solemn initiations, scandal, and shadowy figures glimpsed by night on castle battlements. The conundrum engaged two generations of high society until, soon after 1900, the secret... |
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| Cave Art | |
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| Papua New Guinea: Last of the Cave People |
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· 02/13/2012 6:52:51 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 18 replies · · National Geographic · · February 2012 · · Mark Jenkins · |
But for the glow from the campfire, it is impenetrably dark. Never are there stars, as if that would be too much to hope for. Instead, beyond the rock overhang, it's pouring, waves of water relentlessly slapping the giant fronds of the jungle. It always seems to rain at night here in the mountains of Papua New Guinea. This is why Lidia and what's left of her people, the Meakambut, seek refuge in rock shelters -- they're dry. Located high in the cliffs, sometimes requiring a treacherous climb up vines, caves are also natural fortresses that once protected the Meakambut... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Stunning photo taken from kite that captures devastation from 1906 earthquake in San Francisco |
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· 02/12/2012 1:57:18 PM PST · · Posted by DogByte6RER · · 59 replies · · Daily Mail (U.K.) · · 12th February 2012 · · Nina Golgowski · |
A city in ruins: Stunning photo taken from kite that captures devastation from 1906 earthquake in San Francisco This rarely seen image of the city of San Fransisco lying in ruins after the devastating earthquake of 1906 was captured by an ingenious photographer using a camera attached kites. The panoramic shot, which is of outstanding quality considering the basic equipment available, shows the full scale of the disaster which claimed the lives of over 3,000, injured 225,000 and caused $400,000,000 worth of property damage. Commercial photographer George Lawrence, who used home-made large format cameras, was well known at the time... |
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| The Great War | |
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| German soldiers preserved in World War I shelter discovered after nearly 100 years |
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· 02/14/2012 5:49:12 AM PST · · Posted by Mikey_1962 · · 32 replies · · The Telegraph · · 2-10-12 · · STAFF · |
The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when an Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918 causing it to cave in. Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them. Nearly a century later French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front during excavation work for a road building project. Many of the skeletal remains were found in the same positions the men had been in at the... |
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| end of digest #396 20120218 | |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #396 · v 8 · n 32 Saturday, February 18, 2012 |
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18 topics |
This is the 18-topics-strong GGG Digest, issue #396, volume 8, issue 31. We've got 805 members. · view this issue · |
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| 2012` Q1 FReepathon. Target: $94,000 | Receipts & Pledges to-date: $41,318 | |||
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| Woo hoo!! Now over FORTY-THREE percent!! Thank you all very much!! | ||||
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #397 Saturday, February 25, 2012 |
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| Africa | |
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| Out of Africa? Data fail to support language origin in Africa |
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· 02/20/2012 8:24:25 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 57 replies · · PhysOrg · · February 15, 2012 · · LMUM · |
Last year, a report claiming to support the idea that the origin of language can be traced to West Africa appeared in Science. The article caused quite a stir. Now linguist Michael Cysouw from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet in Munich has challenged its conclusions, in a commentary just published in Science... Atkinson based his claim on a comparative analysis of the numbers of phonemes found in about 500 present-day languages. Phonemes are the most basic sound units --- consonants, vowels and tones --- that form the basis of semantic differentiation in all languages. The number of phonemes used in natural languages varies widely.... |
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| Epigraphy & Language | |
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| Earliest manuscript of Gospel of Mark reportedly found |
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· 02/21/2012 5:21:41 PM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 12 replies · · Christianity Today India · · 02/20/2012 · · Stoyan Zaimov · |
Dallas Theological Seminary professor Daniel B. Wallace has said that newly discovered fragments from the Gospel of Mark could be the oldest New Testament artifacts ever found and date from the first century A.D., or during the time of eyewitnesses of Jesus' resurrection. Wallace announced his findings at UNC Chapel Hill on Feb. 1, 2012, during a debate in front of 1,000 people, where he unveiled that seven New Testament papyri had recently been discovered -- six of them he said were probably from the second century, and one of them, the Gospel of Mark, probably from the first. The... |
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| Faith & Philosophy | |
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| 1500 year-old " Syriac " Bible found in Ankara, Turkey |
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· 02/23/2012 2:20:02 PM PST · · Posted by NYer · · 12 replies · · National Turk · · February 23, 2012 · |
Ancient Bible in Aramaic dialected Syriac rediscovered in Turkey The relic was "rediscovered" in the depositum of Ankaran Justice Palace, the ancient version of bible is believed to be written in Syriac, a dialect of the native language of Jesus. Ankara / Turkey. The bible was already in custody of Turkish authorities after having been seized in 2000 in an operation in Mediterranean area in Turkey. The gang of smugglers had been charged with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations and the possession of explosives and went to trial. Turkish police testified in a court hearing they believe the manuscript... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Israel Seeks to End Ancient African Jewish Custom |
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· 01/18/2012 9:35:37 AM PST · · Posted by marshmallow · · 59 replies · · AP via Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald · · 1/18/12 · · Daniel Estrin · |
ASHKELON, Israel --- Israel is closing the books on a rare millennia-old Jewish tradition. Nearly three decades after Israel began airlifting Ethiopia's ancient Jewish community out of the Horn of Africa, Israel's rabbis are now working to phase out the community's white-turbaned clergy, the kessoch, whose unusual religious practices are at odds with the rabbinate's Orthodox Judaism. The effort has added to the sense of discrimination felt by Israel's 120,000 Ethiopian citizens. These sentiments boiled over this month after a group of landlords in the southern town of Kiryat Malachi refused to accept Ethiopians as tenants.The move has prompted large... |
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| Egypt | |
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| Erasing history in Egypt |
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· 12/25/2011 11:46:39 AM PST · · Posted by Nachum · · 66 replies · · Israel Matzav · · 12/25/11 · · Carl In Jerusalem · |
Guy Bechor reports that Egypt is in the process of destroying all remnants of its ancient, non-Muslim cultures. It was barely mentioned in the Israeli and global media, but the following event pertains to the whole of Western civilization: Last Saturday, violent groups of Islamic-Salafi radicals burned the famous scientific institute established by Napoleon in Egypt after its first encounter with the West. Some historians consider it the start of modern times in the Middle East. The site, L'Institut d'Egypte, held some 200,000 original and rare books, exhibits, maps, archeological findings and studies from Egypt and the entire Middle East,... |
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| Religion of Pieces | |
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| Maldives: Muslim hardliners smashes Buddhist statues in national museum |
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· 02/08/2012 12:14:00 PM PST · · Posted by bayouranger · · 11 replies · · peopleofshambhala.com · · 08FEB12 · · People of Shambhala · |
On the same day as the Maldives President resigned, after a coup by police, Islamic hardliners burst into the national museum and smashed Buddhist statues. Police spokesman Ahmed Shiyam told police that "A mob entered the museum yesterday (Tuesday). They smashed many statues. This included some statues of Buddha," reports Al Arabiya News. Former President, Mohamed Nasheed, blamed the attack on hardliner Muslims. There has been a debate for some weeks over statues in the Maldives. Several that had been gifted to the nation from Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and other nations, were denounced by extremists as "idolatry," and as unacceptable... |
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| Trouble in paradise: Maldives and Islamic extremism |
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· 02/12/2012 9:21:03 PM PST · · Posted by County Agent Hank Kimball · · 26 replies · · Agence France-Presse · · February 12, 2012 · · Amal Jayasinghe · |
At the Maldives' National Museum, smashed Buddhist statues are testament to the rise of Islamic extremism and Taliban-style intolerance in a country famous as a laid-back holiday destination. On Tuesday, as protesters backed by mutinous police toppled president Mohamed Nasheed, a handful of men stormed the Chinese-built museum and destroyed its display of priceless artefacts from the nation's pre-Islamic era. "They have effectively erased all evidence of our Buddhist past," a senior museum official told AFP at the now shuttered building in the capital Male, asking not to be named out of fear for his own safety. "We lost all... |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| Four Unknown Shipwrecks Found [ Crete ] |
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· 02/22/2012 8:08:07 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · · Athens News · · Monday, February 20, 2012 · · AMNA · |
Four previously unknown shipwrecks have been discovered some 30 kilometers off the Bay of Irakleio, Crete, in recent underwater exploration conducted by the ephorate of underwater antiquities. The new finds comprise two Roman era shipwrecks, one containing 1st and 2nd-century Cretan amphorae and the other containing 5th-7th century post-Roman era amphorae, and two shipwrecks containing Byzantine amphorae, dated from the 8th-9th century and later. The finds, which were made south and east of the Dia islet, which lies 7 nautical miles north of Irakleio, were documented and taken ashore for further analysis. Three more recent shipwrecks were also discovered, as... |
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| What's the Total Value of the World's Sunken Treasure? |
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· 02/23/2012 7:16:17 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 25 replies · · Popular Mechanics · · Rob Goodier · |
Don't be fooled by the flashy dollars figures, Mitchell-Cook argues --- we can't know how much wealth is at the bottom of the sea, but it's not enough to make it worth your time. There's no documentation for many shipwrecks and disappearances, Mitchell-Cook says. And there's no way to know what happened to the wreck. Some ships drop intact in deep water, others run aground, or break up in a storm and scatter their remains for miles. "Also, currents, bottom conditions, temperature of water, and other factors can work to preserve or destroy a vessel," she says. Don't forget fishing,... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Archaeology: Acropolis of forgotten kingdom uncovered |
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· 02/21/2012 8:33:21 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 28 replies · · ANSA · · Friday, February 10, 2012 · · ANSAmed · |
Numerous archaeological excavations are underway at a huge site in Anatolia which will uncover an ancient and rich yet forgotten kingdom known as Tuwana from the darkness of history, which will be featured in an open-air museum. The news was reported by Lorenzo d'Alfonso, an Italian archaeologist leading the joint mission by the University of Pavia and NYU, who provided details on the excavation campaign in a press conference in Istanbul this month, during which the details of the Italian archaeological missions in Turkey were explained. This "new discovery" from the pre-classical age which "needs to be continued" in southern... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Evidence of massacre in Bronze Age Turkey [ Titris Hoyuk ] |
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· 02/20/2012 8:59:09 AM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 11 replies · · Past Horizons · · Monday, February 20, 2012 · · Katy Meyers · |
Skeletal collections with trauma found from the Neolithic period in Anatolia suggest that injury was caused by daily activities and lifestyle, rather than systematic violence. However, shortly after this period there is an increase in trauma associated with violence that may suggest an increase in stress within and between populations in this area... The human remains come from the site of Titris Hoyuk, dating to 2900-2100 BCE. The site grew very quickly in this period from a small farming community to an urban centre within a large mud-brick fortification wall built over a stone foundation. Within one of the house... |
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| PreColumbian, Clovis & PreClovis | |
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| Aztec carvings tell story of cosmic battle |
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· 02/20/2012 6:32:14 AM PST · · Posted by Renfield · · 31 replies · · Past Horizons · · 2-9-2012 · |
A total of 23 pre-Columbian stone plaques dating back over 550 years were discovered by archaeologists in front of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan in Mexico City, with carvings illustrating Aztec myths including the birth of the god of war Huitzilopochtli. The sculpted images are carved on slabs of tezontle (a volcanic rock) and feature depictions of serpents, captives and warriors. They also feature other figures relating to the mythological origins of Aztec civilization. The stone carvings focus on the myths of Huitzilopochtli's birth and the beginning of the Holy War. Raul Barrera from the National Institute of Anthropology and... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| 300 million year old fossilized forest discovered under coal mine in China |
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· 02/22/2012 4:01:42 AM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 27 replies · · ZME Science · · 2/21/12 · |
There's some good coming off China's extensive coal exploitation (the nation holds the top place for most pollutant emissions resulting from burning coal), as recent mining activities around Wuda in Inner Mongolia, China, has uncovered an almost perfectly preserved 298 million year-old forest. The forest, which also features intact trees with leaves, branches, trunk and cones, was buried by volcanic ash, and thus kept away from time's unforgiving touch. The researchers dubbed the forest the "Pompeii of the Permian period, since the manner in which it was preserved bared a striking resemblance to the famous Roman namesake event. The volcanic... |
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| The Pompeii of trees: 300 million-year-old forest preserved by volcanic ash found beneath Chinese... |
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· 02/24/2012 5:39:14 PM PST · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · · Daily Mail · · Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012 · · Ted Thornhill · |
A 300-million-year-old forest has been found preserved by volcanic ash, just as the Roman town of Pompeii was. The remarkable discovery was made near a coal mine at the city of Wuda in China, by a University of Pennsylvania scientist and Chinese researchers. The study site is unique as it gives a snapshot of a moment in time. Because volcanic ash covered a large expanse of forest over the course of only a few days, the plants were preserved as they fell, in many cases in the exact locations where they grew. 'It's marvellously preserved,' said Hermann Pfefferkorn, a paleobotanist... |
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| I'm Driftin', I'm Driftin' | |
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| America and Eurasia 'to meet at north pole' (in 50-200 million years.) |
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· 02/08/2012 10:58:52 AM PST · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 20 replies · · BBC News · · 2/8/12 · · Neil Bowdler · |
America and Eurasia will crash into each other over the north pole in 50-200 million years time, according to scientists at Yale University. They predict Africa and Australia will join the new "supercontinent" too, which will mark the next coming together of the Earth's land masses. The continents are last thought to have come together 300 million years ago into a supercontinent called Pangaea. Details are published in the journal Nature. The land masses of the Earth are constantly moving as the Earth's as tectonic activity occurs. This generates areas such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where Iceland has formed, and... |
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| Meet 'Amasia,' the Next Supercontinent |
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· 02/09/2012 9:45:24 AM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 29 replies · · Science · · 2/8/12 · · Sid Perkins · |
No boats required. In the distant future, most if not all of today's continents (brown fragments, depicted with current-day outlines) will assemble into a single landmass called Amasia (shown approximately 100 million years from now). Over the next few hundred million years, the Arctic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea will disappear, and Asia will crash into the Americas forming a supercontinent that will stretch across much of the Northern Hemisphere. That's the conclusion of a new analysis of the movements of these giant landmasses. Unlike in today's world, where a variety of tectonic plates move across Earth's surface carrying the... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Why Do Dinosaur Skeletons Look So Weird? (a carcass in a watery grave) |
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· 02/23/2012 12:57:19 PM PST · · Posted by SeekAndFind · · 27 replies · · Science Daily · · 02/16/2012 · |
ScienceDaily (Feb. 16, 2012) --- Many fossilized dinosaurs have been found in a twisted posture. Scientists have long interpreted this as a sign of death spasms. Two researchers from Basel and Mainz now come to the conclusion that this bizarre deformations occurred only during the decomposition of dead dinosaurs. A syndrome like that as a petrified expression of death throes was discussed for the first time about 100 years ago for some vertebrate fossils, but the acceptance of this interpretation declined during the following decades. In 2007, this "opisthotonus hypothesis" was newly posted by a veterinarian and a palaeontologist.... |
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| Middle Ages & Renaissance | |
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| Ice Age: Back to 18th century? |
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· 02/21/2012 9:03:48 PM PST · · Posted by Paul Pierett · · 28 replies · · The Voice of Russia · · Feb. 21, 2012 · · Igor Siletsky · |
In the near future the mankind will face a new ice age not a global warming. That is the forecast which has been made by Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of Space research laboratory at the Saint Petersburg-based Pulkovo Observatory, who is a well known global warming skeptic. According to him the coming cold will be caused by a decline in solar activity. Last time our planet experienced it in mid 17th century until the early 18th century. Nevertheless most of the climate experts including the colleagues of Abdusamatov do not support his theory. |
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| Mammoth Told Me... | |
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| Warming climate could make us all shrink |
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· 02/24/2012 8:43:35 AM PST · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 52 replies · · TG Daily · · 24 February 2012 · · Emma Woollacott · |
Researchers have uncovered a direct link between global temperatures and body size, leading them to conclude that future climate change could mean species getting smaller. A team led by scientists from the University of Florida and the University of Nebraska followed the evolution of the earliest horses about 56 million years ago, and found that as temperatures increased, their body size decreased. "Horses started out small, about the size of a small dog like a miniature schnauzer," says Jonathan Bloch, associate curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History. "What's surprising is that after they first appeared,... |
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| LIVE Woolly Mammoth Spotted in Siberia (video/pic) |
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· 02/10/2012 1:56:59 AM PST · · Posted by Reaganite Republican · · 26 replies · · Reaganite Republican · · February 10, 2012 · · Reaganite Republican · |
Scepitical? Look at the clip and you tell me Red furry coat, giant tusks... elephants†of any sort†not native to the region, either! The Siberian Woolly Mammoth --which we are taught disappeared†abruptly at the end of the last Ice Age (~8000 B.C.)- has long been a source of fascination, as†on occasion†examples are found in a highly-preserved, mummified state under the Arctic territory's thick layer of permafrost.†Similar in appearance to a modern elephant, the Mammoth was actually only slightly larger (~3m at the shoulder) yet with a shorter trunk, longer tusks, ears only 10% the size of their contemporary brethren,... |
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| Climate | |
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| Russians revive Ice Age flower from frozen burrow |
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· 02/20/2012 8:05:56 PM PST · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 49 replies · · AP · · 2/20/12 · · VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV · |
MOSCOW (AP) --- It was an Ice Age squirrel's treasure chamber, a burrow containing fruit and seeds that had been stuck in the Siberian permafrost for over 30,000 years. From the fruit tissues, a team of Russian scientists managed to resurrect an entire plant in a pioneering experiment that paves the way for the revival of other species. The Silene stenophylla is the oldest plant ever to be regenerated, the researchers said, and it is fertile, producing white flowers and viable seeds. The experiment proves that permafrost serves as a natural depository for ancient life forms, said the Russian researchers,... |
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| Flowers regenerated from 30,000-year-old frozen fruits, buried by ancient squirrels |
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· 02/21/2012 12:42:13 PM PST · · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · · 20 replies · · discovermagazine.com · · Feb. 20, 2012 · · Ed Yong · |
Fruits in my fruit bowl tend to rot into a mulchy mess after a couple of weeks. Fruits that are chilled in permanent Siberian ice fare rather better. After more than 30,000 years, and some care from Russian scientists, some ancient fruits have produced this delicate white flower. These regenerated plants, rising like wintry Phoenixes from the Russian ice, are still viable. They produce their own seeds and, after a 30,000-year hiatus, can continue their family line. The plant owes its miraculous resurrection to a team of scientists led by David Gilichinsky, and an enterprising ground squirrel. Back in the... |
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| Southeast Asia | |
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| Strange New Leaf-Nosed Bat Found in Vietnam |
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· 02/25/2012 6:49:18 AM PST · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 10 replies · · nationalgeographic · · February 24, 2012 · · Christine Dell'Amore · |
A new species of bat whose face bristles with leaf-like protrusions has been discovered in Vietnam, a new study says. When scientists first spotted Griffin's leaf-nosed bat in Chu Mom Ray National Park in 2008, the animal was almost mistaken for a known species, the great leaf-nosed bat, said Vu Dinh Thong, of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi. Still, Vu Dinh and his team, thinking there was a chance the bat might in fact be new to science, used nets to catch some of the docile animals. "While captured, some similar body-sized bats, i.e. [the] great... |
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| Biology & Cryptobiology | |
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| Finding Bigfoot Live Thread |
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· 02/19/2012 7:10:59 PM PST · · Posted by matt04 · · 74 replies · · Animal Planet · · · |
Feb 19, 10:00 pm The team travels to Kentucky to investigate a piece of footage that seems to show the glowing eyes of a bigfoot. With locals reporting activity in Daniel Boone National Forest, the team tries a new search technique to see there really are bigfoots in KY. |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Pterosaur-like Creatures Reported in Papua New Guinea |
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· 07/20/2006 7:42:59 PM PDT · · Posted by DaveLoneRanger · · 309 replies · · 16,006+ views · · E-Media Newswire · · July 20, 2006 · · Staff · |
Intermittent expeditions on Umboi Island, Papua New Guinea, from 1994 through 2004, resulted in the compilation of eyewitness testimonies that substantiated a hypothesis that pterosaurs may not be extinct. Long Beach, Calif. (PRWEB) July 20, 2006 --- The conflict between evolution and creation took a new form with an investigation of reports of a pterosaur-like creature in Papua New Guinea. According to standard models of science, all pterosaurs became extinct by about 65-million years ago, but traditional interpretations of the Bible suggest that they lived in human times. According to Jonathan Whitcomb, a forensic videographer who interviewed native islanders in... |
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| Early America | |
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| Spain to send military planes to Florida to collect a half of a billion dollars worth of treasure |
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· 02/22/2012 8:54:50 AM PST · · Posted by KeyLargo · · 47 replies · · NY Daily News · · Feb 20, 2012 · |
Spain to send military planes to Florida to collect a half of a billion dollars worth of treasure 17 tons of treasure that U.S. undersea explorers found could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, experts speculate. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Monday, February 20, 2012, 6:12 PM Spain said Monday it will soon send hulking military transport planes to Florida to retrieve 17 tons of treasure that U.S. undersea explorers found but ultimately lost in American courts, a find experts have speculated could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history. |
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| Peru makes last-minute claim to Spanish booty of the Nuestra |
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· 02/24/2012 12:19:49 PM PST · · Posted by wolfcreek · · 22 replies · · Global post · · 2.24.2012 · · n/a · |
In a final twist to a five-year legal drama, the Peruvian government today appealed to the US Supreme Court to prevent the return to Spain of mountains of salvaged 19th-century lucre that are sitting in a US air base in Florida. |
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| The Revolution | |
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| When George Washington Became Great |
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· 02/20/2012 7:07:34 AM PST · · Posted by yinandyang · · 23 replies · · City Journal · · Myron Magnet · |
-snip- Washington had made every mistake in the book in the New York campaign. He had misread the enemy's intentions; he had divided his forces in the face of superior numbers; he had provided no cavalry; he had hesitated almost fatally to get his army out of Manhattan once he grasped the folly of keeping it there; he had allowed Greene to persuade him against his better judgment to keep men in Fort Washington; he had allowed a wealth of precious tents, flour, ordnance, and ammunition at Forts Washington and Lee to fall into enemy hands. And now, on December... |
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| The Great War | |
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| Football clubs to mark 1914 Christmas Truce |
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· 12/05/2011 6:41:30 PM PST · · Posted by DeaconBenjamin · · 7 replies · · RTE · · 11:05, Friday, 2 December 2011 · |
Manchester United are one of four clubs taking part in a tournament this week to commemorate the Christmas Truce of the First World War. British and German troops made a Christmas Truce in the trenches of the Western Front The tale of a football match played on a First World War battlefield during a Christmas Truce in 1914 will be honoured by young players from four of Europe's top clubs this week in the Belgian town of Ypres. The Christmas Truce tournament, which starts on Friday and is organised by the Premier League, features junior sides from English champions Manchester... |
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| The devastation of Dunkirk: Haunting images from German soldier's photo album seen for first time |
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· 11/13/2011 10:51:23 AM PST · · Posted by InvisibleChurch · · 20 replies · · dailymail · · 5:36 PM on 13th November 2011 · |
These photographs are part of a chilling collection of WWII photographs taken by a German soldier in the aftermath of Dunkirk. Today on Remembrance Day, they are a fitting reminder of the fields which played host to some of the bloodiest battles of World War One in which 10 million soldiers died. The pictures show the lifeless beaches of northern France littered with thousands of allied vehicles left behind following the infamous evacuation.One disturbing snap shows the rotting corpse of a British soldier lapping at the shore. Others show the devastation inflicted on the town of Dunkirk following days of... |
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| First World War officially ends |
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· 09/29/2010 7:09:40 AM PDT · · Posted by shove_it · · 41 replies · · 1+ views · · Telegraph · · 28 Sep 2010 · · Allan Hall · |
The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. The final payment of £59.5 million, writes off the crippling debt that was the price for one world war and laid the foundations for another. Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, leaving... |
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| Last German WWI veteran dies at 107 |
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· 01/25/2008 9:44:07 AM PST · · Posted by NormsRevenge · · 18 replies · · 312+ views · · AP on Yahoo · · 1/25/08 · · David Rising - ap · |
BERLIN - It was an American, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, who famously reflected that "old soldiers never die; they just fade away." But the phrase seems to apply better to the quiet passing of a German believed to have been the country's last World War I veteran. Erich Kaestner died Jan. 1 in a nursing home in Cologne at the age of 107, his son told The Associated Press. When France's second-last surviving veteran from World War I, Louis de Cazenave, died Jan. 20, the news made international headlines. But in Germany --- which lost both world wars and has had... |
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| On this Day a Tennessee Boy Killed 25 and Captured 132 Enemy |
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· 10/08/2001 12:06:01 PM PDT · · Posted by the irate magistrate · · 94 replies · · 882+ views · · History Channel web page · · 10/08/2001 · · staff · |
ALVIN YORK KILLS 25 AND CAPTURES 132: During World War I, U.S. Corporal Alvin C. York is credited with single-handedly killing 25 German soldiers and capturing 132 in the Argonne Forest of France. The action saved York's small detachment from annihilation by a German machine-gun nest and won the reluctant warrior from backwater Tennessee the Congressional Medal of Honor. Born in a log cabin in rural Tennessee in 1887, Alvin Cullum York supplemented his family's subsistence farming by hunting and, like his father, was soon an expert marksman. He also earned a reputation as a hell-raiser, and few imagined he ... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| Long-lost Nuremberg Trials film restored, 66 years late |
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· 02/23/2012 9:33:54 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 4 replies · · The Jewish Chronicle · · February 23, 2012 · · Martin Bright · |
An extraordinary lost film of the Nuremberg war crimes trial enjoyed its UK premiere this week six decades after it was first made. The newly-restored film, Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today, was unveiled at a screening in Parliament on Wednesday. It includes footage from the trial of 21 members of the Nazi high command and extracts from Nazi films, collected by a unit under the command of Hollywood director John Ford. Attorney General Dominic Grieve, who hosted the event, said: "The Nuremberg Trial was a defining moment in the history of international justice, establishing principles which are still in use... |
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| Did Hitler Have a Secret Son? Evidence Supports Alleged Son's Claims |
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· 02/21/2012 8:32:58 PM PST · · Posted by lbryce · · 20 replies · · ABC News · · February 21, 2012 · · Candace Smith · |
Until his death in 1985, Jean-Marie Loret believed that he was the only son of Adolf Hitler. There is now renewed attention to evidence from France and Germany that apparently lends some credence to his claim. Loret collected information from two studies; one conducted by the University of Heidelberg in 1981 and another conducted by a handwriting analyst that showed Loret's blood type and handwriting, respectively, were similar to the Nazi Germany dictator who died childless in 1945 at age 56. The evidence is inconclusive but Loret's story itself was riveting enough to warrant some investigation. The French newspaper Le... |
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| World War II Rumor About an Ancient Lake Is Revived (Russians Say Hitler Remains/Clones) |
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· 02/09/2012 7:33:04 PM PST · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 44 replies · · New York Times · · February 8, 2012 · · J. David Goodman · |
As my colleague David M. Herszenhorn reports, scientists are poised to take some highly anticipated samples from a deep subglacial lake in Antarctica, saying on Wednesday that they had succeeded in boring through more than two miles of ice. The state-financed broadcaster Russia Today posted video of the researchers at the frigid Antarctic outpost, including clips of them snowmobiling around the endless expanse of ice and snow and watching supply planes land. What evolutionary secrets Lake Vostok --- named after the Russian research station above it --- may hold after being sealed under ice for millions of years has tantalized... |
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| Hitler's Drugged Soldiers |
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· 05/06/2005 10:57:50 PM PDT · · Posted by Lando Lincoln · · 106 replies · · 10,463+ views · · Der Spiegel · · 06 May 2005 · · Andreas Ulrich · |
The Nazis preached abstinence in the name of promoting national health. But when it came to fighting their Blitzkrieg, they had no qualms about pumping their soldiers full of drugs and alcohol. Speed was the drug of choice, but many others became addicted to morphine and alcohol. The stimulant Pervitin was delivered to the soldiers at the front. In a letter dated November 9, 1939, to his "dear parents and siblings" back home in Cologne, a young soldier stationed in occupied Poland wrote: "It's tough out here, and I hope you'll understand if I'm only able to write to you... |
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| War dead found 60 years after battle |
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· 04/05/2005 8:13:19 PM PDT · · Posted by M. Espinola · · 15 replies · · 1,417+ views · · Swiss Radio International · · Erik Kirschbaum · |
Seelow Heights, Germany (Reuters) - The remains of thousands of Soviet and German soldiers killed in a climactic World War Two battle outside Berlin are still being unearthed and identified 60 years after the fighting ended. German officials said on Tuesday they had found the skeletal remains of 1,080 Wehrmachtand 700 Red Army soldiers at the Seelow Heights battlefield since they began searching 12years ago for victims of the fiercest World War Two combat in Germany. A JS-2 on the Berlin highway during Spring 1945. "World War Two won't be truly finished until they've all been recovered and given a... |
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| Were There Jews in the Nazi Army? |
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· 04/30/2002 5:31:11 PM PDT · · Posted by swarthyguy · · 131 replies · · 6,843+ views · · chronicle.com · · May 3, 2002 · · Danny Postel · |
A historian says thousands of Hitler's soldiers had mixed heritage. Does it matter? Now, Bryan Mark Rigg the 31-year-old professor of history at the online American Military University, who recently received a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, has just published a book on Nazi Germany that some historians are calling pathbreaking. This month, the University Press of Kansas releases Hitler's Jewish Soldiers: The Untold Story of Nazi Racial Laws and Men of Jewish Descent in the German Military, on which Mr. Rigg has been laboring since his sophomore year of college. Controversy has shadowed his work for years. Articles... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Nazi Germany - Dictatorship (within 24 hrs after fire, no press, assembly or speaking out) |
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· 02/18/2012 12:19:25 PM PST · · Posted by STARWISE · · 55 replies · · History Learning Site · · unk · |
*snip* One week before the election was due to take place, the Reichstag building burned down. Hitler immediately declared that it was the signal for a communist takeover of the nation. Hitler knew that if he was to convince President Hindenburg to give him emergency powers - as stated in the Weimar Constitution - he had to play on the old president's fear of communism. What better than to convince him that the communists were about to take over the nation by force? A known communist - Marianus van der Lubbe - was caught near the Reichstag building immediately after... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Iceland Is So Inbred It Needs a Website to Avoid Incest |
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· 02/11/2012 9:52:19 PM PST · · Posted by Slings and Arrows · · 110 replies · · Gizmodo · · Feb 6, 2012 · |
When your society has inhabited a small, remote island for countless generations and boasts a population of only 300,000, the odds of having sex with a relative are significant. Luckily, Icelanders now have a handy tool to avoid family-sex. √ïslendingab√›k --- meaning "book of Icelanders" --- is an online incest avoidance search engine. Plug in your name and that of a potential mate, and the site searches a genealogical database to see how closely you're related. It's likely that you'll have some overlap many generations back --- in which case you're probably safe from mutant children. But if you share great-grandparents, you might want to reconsider... |
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| end of digest #397 20120225 | |
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