[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #235 Saturday, January 17, 2009
Pages
The Dangers of Disputing Global Warming Orthodoxy
	01/08/2009 8:27:27 AM PST · Posted by all the best · 32 replies · 1,073+ views Ludwig von Mises Institute | January 8, 2009 | David Gordon Those of us who refuse to accept calls from proponents of global warming for drastic restrictions on production often confront objections like this: Skeptics, blinded by fanatical devotion to the free market, ignore evidence. True enough, you can trot out a few scientists who agree with you. But the overwhelming majority of climate scientists view man-made global warming as a great threat to the world. The course of inaction you urge on us threatens the earth with disaster. Christopher Horner's excellent book provides a convincing response to this all-too-frequent complaint. But how can it do so? Will not an "anti-global-warming"...
Climate
The earth's magnetic field impacts climate: Danish study
	01/12/2009 6:33:01 PM PST · Posted by NormsRevenge · 70 replies · 1,389+ views AFP on Yahoo | 1/12/09 | AFP COPENHAGEN (AFP) -- The earth's climate has been significantly affected by the planet's magnetic field, according to a Danish study published Monday that could challenge the notion that human emissions are responsible for global warming. "Our results show a strong correlation between the strength of the earth's magnetic field and the amount of precipitation in the tropics," one of the two Danish geophysicists behind the study, Mads Faurschou Knudsen of the geology department at Aarhus University in western Denmark, told the Videnskab journal. He and his colleague Peter Riisager, of the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), compared a...
Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths
Stonehenge in Lake Michigan?(Potentially pre-historic stone formation discovered deep underwater)
	01/13/2009 5:24:22 PM PST · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 24 replies · 1,153+ views nbcchicago.com | January 8, 2009 | MATT BARTOSIK The iconic Stonehenge in the UK is one of the most famous prehistoric monuments in the world, but it is not the only stone formation of its kind. Similar stone alignments have been found throughout England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales -- and now, it seems, in Lake Michigan. According to BLDGBLOG, in 2007, Mark Holley, professor of underwater archeology at Northwestern Michigan College, discovered a series of stones arranged in a circle 40 feet below the surface of Lake Michigan. One stone outside the circle seems to have carvings that resemble a mastodon, an elephant-like animal that went extinct about 10,000 years...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Study Reveals DNA Links Between Ancient Peruvians, Japanese
	01/10/2009 11:55:02 AM PST · Posted by decimon · 27 replies · 490+ views Latin American Herald | January 10,2009 | Unknown > The director of the Sican National Museum, Carlos Elera, told the daily that Shinoda found that people who lived more than 1,000 years ago in what today is the Lambayeque region, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of Lima, had genetic links to the comtemporaneous populations of Ecuador, Colombia, Siberia, Taiwan and to the Ainu people of northern Japan. The studies will be continued on descendents of the Mochica culture, from the same region, who are currently working on the Sican Project and with people who live in the vicinity of the Bosque de Pomac Historical Sanctuary. >
Out of Africa Until Next Thursday
Bonnie the ape holds a tune (she whistles - video)
	01/12/2009 9:38:04 AM PST · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 9 replies · 357+ views thesun.co.uk | December 23, 2008 | VINCE SOODIN MEET Bonnie the WHISTLING orangutan. The 140lb ape stunned her keepers when she picked up the self-taught trick. Now boffins believe she may hold crucial clues as to how the human language evolved.
Neandertal / Neanderthal
Neanderthal Weaponry Lacked Projectile Advantage
	01/15/2009 5:18:56 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 24 replies · 370+ views Discovery | Jan. 14, 2009 | Jennifer Viegas Jan. 14, 2009 -- A trio of new studies on prehistoric weapons suggests Neanderthals made sophisticated weapons and tools -- possibly including the first sticky adhesive -- but they lacked the projectile weapons possessed by early humans. The missing technology, along with climate change and competition with arrow-shooting humans, may have contributed to the Neanderthals' eventual extinction. "While we are not suggesting that modern humans were directing projectile weapons against Neanderthals, it is certainly possible that at times they did so," Steven Churchill, co-author of one of the papers, told Discovery News.
British Isles
Ancient rock art baffles experts[UK]
	01/15/2009 3:19:11 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 22 replies · 409+ views Telegraph | 15 Jan 2009 | Matt Ford Matt Ford scours the countryside for enigmatic rock carvings left by our ancestors. While some people dream of the warm sun of southern Spain for their retirement, David Jones chose high fells, the sharp teeth of a gale and the quest to find 5,000-year-old artwork. "I decided to build a new life when I retired," says the former IT marketing specialist, as a bitter wind whips through his hair. "I wanted the last third to be quite different from the first two thirds. I walk a lot, I work with charities, and I do this." "This" is joining more than...
Weird Rock Carvings Puzzle Archaeologists
	10/09/2003 11:44:15 AM PDT · Posted by blam · 40 replies · 937+ views New Scientist | 10-9-2003 Weird rock carvings puzzle archaeologists 17:34 09 October 03 NewScientist.com news service The concave spherical shapes, about 20cm across, may have been cut with metal tools (Image: North News and Pictures) Mysterious rock carvings engraved into strange shapes are baffling UK archaeologists. One resembles a heart, another a human footprint. Aron Mazel and Stan Beckensall, who stumbled across the unusual carvings close to England's border with Scotland, believe they are the first such designs to have been discovered in the UK. "We have absolutely no idea what they are," says Mazel, an archaeologist at the University of Newcastle. "They are...
Greece
The West's Cultural Continuity: Aristotle at Mont Saint-Michel
	01/13/2009 12:50:10 AM PST · Posted by rmlew · 12 replies · 220+ views The Brussels Journal | 01/05/2009 | Thomas F. Bertonneau Sylvain Gouguenheim's "Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel: Les racines grecques de l'Europe Chretienne" reviewed by Thomas F. BertonneauLong before the late Eduard Said invented "Orientalism" to exalt Arab culture and Islamic society at the expense of the West, bien-pensants like Voltaire inclined to express their rebellion against the dwindling vestiges of Christendom by representing Europeans as bigots or clowns and raising up exotic foreigners -- Voltaire himself wrote about Turks and Persians of the Muslim fold -- to be the fonts of wisdom and models of refined life in their tracts and stories. The sultan and dervish look with amused tolerance...
Rome and Italy
Canal cruises into past prove Shakespeare was right [Italian Medieval/Renaissance canals reopening]
	01/14/2009 1:22:51 PM PST · Posted by Mike Fieschko · 8 replies · 289+ views The Times [London, UK] | January 12, 2009 | Richard Owen Italy is to reopen medieval and Renaissance inland waterways so that tourists can travel more than 500 kilometres (300 miles) by boat from Lake Maggiore to Venice via Milan. This summer engineers will start clearing eight kilometres of canals from the southern end of Lake Maggiore at Sesto Calende to Somma Lombardo. Alessandro Meinardi, of the Navigli Lombardi (Lombardy Canals) company, which is overseeing the project, said that the aim was to make navigable the whole of the 14th-century 140-kilometre stretch of waterways from Locarno in Switzerland to Milan. The restored canal system would eventually link up with the River...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Early chemical warfare comes to light
	01/12/2009 7:37:48 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 5 replies · 464+ views ScienceNews | 11 Jan 2009 | Bruce Bower Roman soldiers defending a Middle Eastern garrison from attack nearly 2,000 years ago met the horrors of war in a most unusual place. Inside a cramped tunnel beneath the site's massive front wall, enemy fighters stacked up nearly two dozen dead or dying Romans and set them on fire, using substances that gave off toxic fumes and drove away Roman warriors just outside the tunnel. The attackers, members of Persia's Sasanian culture that held sway over much of the region in and around the Middle East from the third to the seventh centuries, adopted a brutally ingenious method for penetrating...
Ancient Persians who gassed Romans were the first to use chemical weapons
	01/14/2009 8:37:02 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 20 replies · 610+ views The Telegraph | 1/14/2008 They gassed Roman soldiers with toxic fumes 2,000 years ago, researchers have discovered. Archeologists have found the oldest evidence of chemical warfare yet after studying the bodies of 20 Roman soldiers' found underground in Syria 70 years ago. Archeologists have found the oldest evidence of chemical warfare after studying the bodies of 20 Roman soldiers Clues left at the scene revealed the Persians were lying in wait as the Romans dug a tunnel during a siege -- then pumped in toxic gas -- produced by sulphur crystals and bitumen -- to kill all the Romans in minutes. Dr Simon James,...
The Vikings
Vikings' bleeding-edge tech came from Afghanistan
	01/12/2009 7:11:31 AM PST · Posted by BGHater · 21 replies · 573+ views The Register | 06 Jan 2009 | Lewis Page Bouncing-bomb boffins probe ancient weapons trade Boffins at the UK's famous National Physical Laboratory (NPL) - birthplace of the Dambusters' bouncing bomb and perhaps the internet - say they have used an electron microscope to analyse Viking swords. In a surprise twist, it turns out that the old-time Scandinavian pests, many of whom moved to England to become our ancestors, actually imported their best steel from Afghanistan. "Sword making in Viking times was important work," says Dr Alan Williams, a top archaeometallurgist at the Wallace Collection, a London-based museum of objets d'art which has a massive array of old arms...
Let's Have Jerusalem
Keepers of the Lost Ark? (Christians in Ethiopia have long claimed to have the ark of the covenant)
	01/14/2009 8:41:13 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 40 replies · 854+ views Smithsonian Magazine | Paul Raffaele Christians in Ethiopia have long claimed to have the ark of the covenant. Our reporter investigated"They shall make an ark of acacia wood," God commanded Moses in the Book of Exodus, after delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. And so the Israelites built an ark, or chest, gilding it inside and out. And into this chest Moses placed stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, as given to him on Mount Sinai. Thus the ark "was worshipped by the Israelites as the embodiment of God Himself," writes Graham Hancock in The Sign and the Seal. "Biblical and other archaic...
Moderate Islam / ROP Alert
Exclusive: Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law
	01/12/2009 4:20:18 AM PST · Posted by captjanaway · 10 replies · 775+ views Family Security Matters | January 8, 2009 | The Editors In her latest book, Cruel and Usual Punishment: The Terrifying Global Implications of Islamic Law, author Nonie Darwish paints a chilling description of what lies ahead for Western civilizations that continue down the road of political correctness and appeasement as Islamic (Shariah) law creeps its way into free societies across the globe. Darwish, who was born in Cairo, and moved as a child to Gaza with her family, was raised Muslim -- her father founding Palestinian fedayeen units which launched terrorist raids across Israel's southern border. When Nonie was only eight, her father was assassinated by the IDF, after which...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Hitler and the secret Satanic cult at the heart of Nazi Germany
	01/14/2009 2:02:05 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 51 replies · 1,091+ views NewsMonster | 10 Jan 2009 | Danny Penman At first glance, the large circular room in the basement of Wewelsburg Castle appears to be harmless enough. Smooth, finely cut stones pave the floor. Glistening rock walls arch majestically towards a high vaulted ceiling. In the centre of the room lies a sunken circular alter with polished steps leading towards a burnt and cracked stone. From here you can see thirteen lanterns flickering on the curved walls. But it's only when you look directly upwards that the room's significance becomes shockingly clear. At the centre of the dome lies a giant swastika. This room was the central temple of...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
The Man Who Killed Leon Trotsky
	01/15/2009 11:58:28 AM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 16 replies · 818+ views typicallyspanish.com | Dec 28, 2008 RamÛn Mercader from Barcelona killed Trotsky with an ice axe in Mexico City. On 20th August 1940, the exiled Leon Trotsky was fatally wounded at his home in a suburb of Mexico City when an ice axe was driven into his skull. He cried out to his guards as they burst into his study, "Don't kill him! He must talk.' Despite struggling fiercely, and even managing to bite the hand of his assassin, Trotsky died the next day, and the man who wielded the murder weapon was sentenced to 20 years in prison. He insisted throughout his trial and his...
Early America
Re-enactors mark Battle of Princeton as turning point in history
	01/12/2009 6:23:12 PM PST · Posted by Coleus · 13 replies · 299+ views star ledger | 12.22.08 | Tom Hester John Mills and Jerry Hurwitz are historians with a scholar's knowledge of the Jan. 3, 1777, Battle of Princeton. Mills, the historian for Princeton Battlefield State Park, and Hurwitz, president of the Princeton Battlefield Society, recently stood on high ground overlooking the 75 sweeping acres that remain of the battlefield. Before them, patches of ice splotched the yellow grass just as they did on that "bright, serene, and extremely cold morning," as an American lieutenant described it nearly 232 years ago, when Gen. George Washington and his cold and battle-weary volunteers defeated British regulars in a turning point of the...
Washington becomes a walker: In times to try men's soles, re-enactors take bridge across Delaware
	01/14/2009 9:58:32 AM PST · Posted by Coleus · 5 replies · 155+ views star ledger | December 26, 2008 | VICKI HYMAN UPPER MAKEFIELD, Pa. -- George Washington crossed the Delaware, all right. He took the bridge. For the second year in a row, high water and strong winds stymied the annual Christmas Day re-enactment of the famed crossing of 1776 that preceded the Battle of Trenton and, along with the Battle of Princeton, turned the tide of the Revolutionary War. But Ronald Rinaldi Jr., the man selected to play Gen. George Washington, said the decision to forgo the Durham boats only underlined how treacherous the original crossing must have been. "It's 1 o'clock in the afternoon. He did it in the...
Longer Perspectives
What's Behind Jefferson's "Wall"
	01/10/2009 12:12:11 PM PST · Posted by BuddhaBrown · 27 replies · 337+ views Me | 10 Jan 09 | BuddhaB What's behind Jefferson's "wall"? Godless liberals often misapply the "wall" quote from Thomas Jefferson to further the goal of eliminating God from the public square. This is a position based in ignorance. Some even think the wall quote is part of the First Amendment's establishment clause which merely reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." It should be noted that the noble collection of Framers who hammered out the First Amendment in the summer of 1789 did NOT include Jefferson who was in France. And neither their discussions nor the...
Civil War
NYC: Is the secret of Lincoln's assassination
	01/15/2009 8:56:06 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 31 replies · 837+ views Examiner | January 14 | Laura Harrison McBride For a while, I lived on Court Street in Brooklyn, NY, and sometimes shopped in the Middle Eastern markets on Atlantic Avenue, which crossed Court Street several blocks from my apartment. I loved fig jam, and it was the only place I knew to get it. What I didn't know was that, not too long before I moved there, a man named Bob Diamond had found the oldest subway tunnel in the world. I probably trod on its entrance, a manhole at the intersection of Court St. and Atlantic Avenue. There's great stuff down there. The tunnel linked the Long...
World War Eleven
1,800 Germans dug up from 1945 mass grave in Poland
	01/08/2009 6:38:39 PM PST · Posted by GSP.FAN · 57 replies · 961+ views Chicago Sun Times | AFP WARSAW - The remains of 1,800 German civilians who perished in 1945, towards the end of the World War II, have been exhumed from a mass grave in Malbork, northern Poland, officials said Wednesday.
WWII officer who said 'nuts' to Germans dies (Patton Alert)
	01/13/2009 4:57:12 PM PST · Posted by GSP.FAN · 38 replies · 760+ views AP | Jan 12 09 | AP NEW YORK - Retired Lt. Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard, a paratroop officer who suggested the famously defiant answer "Nuts!" to a German demand for surrender during the 1944 Battle of the Bulge, has died. He was 93.
Jacques Littlefield, tank collector, dies
	01/14/2009 3:09:57 PM PST · Posted by dynachrome · 24 replies · 761+ views SFGate | 1-13-09 | Carolyn Jones A jewel in his collection is the German Panzer V Panther tank that the German army sank in a Polish river during World War II to keep it from the advancing Russians. The Panther sat submerged for decades, and Mr. Littlefield acquired it five years ago and began restoring it. "Restoration is very satisfying, especially with something like the Panther," Mr. Littlefield said in a 2007 interview with The Chronicle. "People say: 'You'll never get that thing running again.' Well, it was built once, and we can do it again."
He Held Back An Entire Army
	01/14/2009 3:30:34 PM PST · Posted by posterchild · 8 replies · 560+ views Investor's Business Daily | January 2, 2009 | Paul Katzeff John Ripley's relationship with the Marines was love at first sight. His initial glimpse of the Corps came when he was kid, hawking newspapers on a train. His father was a manager for the railroad. "One day he sold papers to soldiers who were returning from World War II," said Stephen Ripley, 43, the eldest of John Ripley's four children. "Some Marines gave him a 50-cent tip for papers that cost 10 cents each. He also saw their swagger. He never forgot that." After graduating from Radford (Va.) High School in 1957, he enlisted -- and that commitment paid off...
Morning Calm
SOLDIER MISSING IN ACTION FROM KOREAN WAR IS IDENTIFIED
	01/12/2009 1:54:32 PM PST · Posted by Stonewall Jackson · 33 replies · 683+ views Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (Public Affairs) | Jan 12, 2009 | Staff SOLDIER MISSING IN ACTION FROM KOREAN WAR IS IDENTIFIED The Department of Defense POW/Missing Personnel Office announced today that the remains of a U.S. serviceman, missing in action from the Korean War, have been identified and will be returned to his family for burial with full military honors. He is Sgt. Dougall H. Espey, Jr., U.S. Army, of Mount Laurel, N.J. He will be buried April 3 in Elmira, N.Y. Representatives from the Army's Mortuary Office met with Espey's next-of-kin to explain the recovery and identification process on behalf of the Secretary of the Army. Espey was assigned to Company...
Biology and...
Brady Barr's Dangerous Encounter With the 'Jurassic Shark'
	01/09/2009 7:53:40 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 10 replies · 564+ views ABC News | Jan. 9, 2009 | JONANN BRADY Scientist-adventurer Brady Barr has traveled all over the world to study hundreds of animal species, but a recent trip took him somewhere few people have ever been -- to see one of the world's most mysterious, and some believe one of the oldest living creatures. Call it the "Jurassic shark." The six-gill shark is one of the least understood sharks in the world, Barr said. That's because the six-gill lives thousands of feet below the ocean's surface in frigid, pitch-black waters and almost never comes into contact with humans. Barr, 46, went to Central America and traveled 1,700 feet underwater...
...Cryptobiology
Genetic secrets from Tassie tiger (new talk on bringing extinct thylacine back to life)
	01/15/2009 4:33:01 PM PST · Posted by presidio9 · 39 replies · 534+ views BBC News | Jonathan Amos Scientists have detailed a significant proportion of the genes found in the extinct Tasmanian "tiger". The international team extracted the hereditary information from the hair of preserved animal remains held in Swedish and US museums. The information has allowed scientists to confirm the tiger's evolutionary relationship to other marsupials. The study, reported in the journal Genome Research, may also give pointers as to why some animals die out. The two tigers examined had near-identical DNA, suggesting there was very little genetic diversity in the species when it went over the edge. I want to learn as much as I can...
Thylacine was always going to die off
	09/17/2007 1:35:11 PM PDT · Posted by presidio9 · 20 replies · 105+ views The Sunday Tasmanian | September 16, 2007 | MICHAEL STEDMAN The long-held belief Tasmanian tigers killed livestock is being challenged. Using advanced computer modelling, an Australian research team has found that, while strong-jawed, the thylacine would have had trouble killing and eating prey any larger than itself. From about 1830 until 1909 the Tasmanian Government paid a 1-a-head bounty,
Tasmanian Tiger No Match For Dingo
	09/05/2007 1:55:54 PM PDT · Posted by blam · 18 replies · 697+ views Science Daily | 9-5-2007 | University of New South Wales Source: University of New South Wales Date: September 5, 2007 Tasmanian Tiger No Match For Dingo Science Daily -- The wily dingo out-competed the much larger marsupial thylacine by being better built anatomically to resist the "mechanical stresses" associated with killing large prey, say Australian scientists. Despite being armed with a more powerful and efficient bite and having larger energy needs than the dingo, the thylacine was restricted to eating relatively small prey while the dingo's stronger head and neck anatomy allowed it to subdue large prey as well. Earlier studies had given ambiguous results regarding the size of prey...
Tasmanian Tiger Extinction Mystery
	06/27/2007 7:10:02 AM PDT · Posted by presidio9 · 12 replies · 560+ views Science Daily/University of Adelaide | June 26, 2007 A University of Adelaide project led by zoologist Dr Jeremy Austin is investigating whether the world-fabled Tasmanian Tiger may have survived beyond its reported extinction in the late 1930s. Dr Austin from the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA is extracting ancient DNA from animal droppings found in Tasmania in the late 1950s and "60s, which have been preserved in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. "The scats (droppings) were found by Eric Guiler, Australia's last real thylacine expert, who said he thought it more probable they came from the Tasmanian Tiger rather than a dog, Tasmanian Devil or quoll," Dr...
THE BOOTLEG FILES: "FOOTAGE OF THE LAST THYLACINE"
	02/21/2007 9:43:51 AM PST · Posted by presidio9 · 17 replies · 935+ views Film Threat | 2007-02-16 | Phil Hall This week's column is somewhat different in that the focus is not on a long-lost motion picture classic or a bizarre bit of cult-worthy obscurity. Instead, the film in question is a brief ribbon of celluloid that provides the final glimpse of an animal that fell victim to years of brutal persecution and government-sponsored hunting. The film itself does not have a formal title, and it is called "Footage of the Last Thylacine" just for the sake of temporary identification. What was a thylacine? It looked like a canine, but it was actually a marsupial that was concentrated in Tasmania....
The Thylacine Debate - Is the Tasmanian Tiger Really Extinct?
	03/22/2006 1:53:25 PM PST · Posted by pcottraux · 13 replies · 323+ views The Epoch Times | March 16 | Chani Blue The Thylacine Debate - Is the Tasmanian Tiger Really Extinct? By Chani Blue Epoch Times Australia Staff Mar 16, 2006 Despite hundreds of reported sightings of this elusive marsupial wild dog, the Tasmanian Tiger, Thylacinus Cynocephalus remains declared officially extinct, therefore has no protection for it's fragile and natural environment or in and of itself, until it's existence can be verified. The Tasmanian tiger lives in dry eucalypt forest, wetlands and grasslands in Tasmania. From indigenous fossil paintings, we can determine that it also lived in Papua New Guinea and main land Australia. Some remains discovered, date back to 2,200...
Another `thylacine' sighted
	01/10/2006 1:44:46 AM PST · Posted by Tyche · 6 replies · 504+ views The Standard | Jan 09, 2006 | Matt Neal A TASMANIAN tiger or thylacine ran across a road north of Colac about 12.50am last Monday, according to Warrion man Steven Bennett. Mr Bennett said he was driving between Cressy and Warrion when he spotted the animal, believed to have been extinct since 1936. ``It ran across the road in front of me (and) paused before it went into the bushes and long grass (on the side of the road),'' he said. The 24-year-old said the animal's stripes, tail and hind legs convinced him it was not a dog, feral cat or fox. A Tasmanian tiger ``is pretty much the...
Australian scientists plan to clone extinct Tasmanian tiger
	05/17/2005 12:48:17 AM PDT · Posted by nickcarraway · 16 replies · 836+ views Hindustan Times | May 15, 2005 Australian researchers are reviving a project to bring an extinct animal known as the Tasmanian tiger back from the dead through cloning. Three months after the Australian Museum shelved plans to clone the tiger -- also known as a thylacine -- a group of universities and a research institute are planning to revive the project, the Sun-Herald newspaper reported. Mike Archer, dean of science at the University of New South Wales, was quoted as saying that researchers from NSW and Victoria states were likely to join the programme, which involves recovering DNA from a pup preserved in 1866 to breed...
Dog Doubts Over Tasmanian Tiger
	11/04/2003 11:20:08 AM PST · Posted by blam · 9 replies · 241+ views BBC | 11-4-2003 | Jonathan Amos Dog doubts over Tasmanian tiger By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff TASMANIAN 'TIGER' * The thylacine was a large marsupial carnivore * It ranged widely from Papua New Guinea to Tasmania * Many scientists doubt cloning technology can bring it back The dingo it seems had an accomplice in driving the Tasmanian "tiger" off mainland Australia - human hunters. There appears little doubt the famous feral dog out-competed the tiger for food and helped push it back to its final island habitat 3,000 years ago. But researchers say changes in Aboriginal land use, population size and technology taking...
Big cats not a tall tale
	11/01/2003 7:03:53 PM PST · Posted by aculeus · 24 replies · 531+ views Sydney Morning Herald | November 2, 2003 | By Eamonn Duff A State Government inquiry has found it is "more likely than not" a colony of "big cats" is roaming Sydney's outskirts and beyond. The revelations are the result of a fresh four-month investigation into the "black panther phenomenon" which for years has plagued residents across Sydney's west, north-west, Richmond, the Blue Mountains and Lithgow. While National Parks and Wildlife officials are yet to implement a positive course of action, a senior source confirmed last night a big cat expert had been contacted with a view to future work. He said: "While we still haven't got conclusive evidence that the creature...
Downfall of the Yarri
	01/27/2003 6:37:49 AM PST · Posted by vannrox · 2 replies · 445+ views Forteantimes | FR Post 1-25-03 | Darren Naish Downfall of the Yarri, or Will the real Thylacoleo please stand up? Darren Naish In 1926 A. S. le Souef and Harry Burrell included the "Striped marsupial cat' in their influential popular volume The Wild Animals of Australasia. Concerning a cryptid reported from Australia and usually termed the Queensland tiger, their decision was significant as few cryptids have been regarded so sympathetically by non-cryptozoologists. This near-acceptance reflected both the apparent quality and consistency of eyewitness accounts as well as the long-standing academic interest there had been in the creature. First brought to attention by European Australians in the 1870s,...
Scientists pledge to clone extinct Tasmanian tiger
	05/28/2002 7:23:33 PM PDT · Posted by Pokey78 · 19 replies · 425+ views The Guardian (U.K.) | 05/29/2002 | James Meek Australian team has copied parts of DNA but faces huge odds A team of Australian scientists pledged yesterday to salve their country's conscience by bringing a cloned Tasmanian tiger back to the island where it was hunted to extinction more than 60 years ago. They announced that they had succeeded in copying small fragments of DNA from pickled tiger pups, suggesting that it might one day be possible to assemble the animal's entire set of genes and clone it back into existence. "We are now further ahead than any other project that has attempted anything remotely similar using extinct DNA,"...
Australia and the Pacific
Giant bird feces records pre-human New Zealand
	01/12/2009 11:22:01 AM PST · Posted by Red Badger · 31 replies · 389+ views www.physorg.com | 1-11-2009 | Source: University of Adelaide A treasure trove of information about pre-human New Zealand has been found in faeces from giant extinct birds, buried beneath the floor of caves and rock shelters for thousands of years. A team of ancient DNA and palaeontology researchers from the University of Adelaide, University of Otago and the NZ Department of Conservation have published their analyses of plant seeds, leaf fragments and DNA from the dried faeces (coprolites) to start building the first detailed picture of an ecosystem dominated by giant extinct species. Former PhD student Jamie Wood, from the University of Otago, discovered more than 1500 coprolites in...
Paleontology
Downy dinosaur found in China was an early bird
	01/12/2009 6:55:59 PM PST · Posted by bruinbirdman · 58 replies · 654+ views The Times | 1/13/2008 | Lewis Smith A dinosaur that would have been covered with feathers has been discovered in China, adding to evidence that supports the theory that birds evolved from ancient reptiles. It is thought that the plant-eating dinosaur would have used the feathers to attract a mate. Two types of feather were found on the animal's remains, and one that would have been used to signal to other creatures is the most primitive form yet seen in a dinosaur. This feather is believed by researchers to have been used by the animal to signal its intentions to potential mates and as a means of...
end of digest #235 20090117

[SunkenCiv]

Gods Graves Glyphs Digest #235 20090117 · Saturday, January 17, 2009 · 41 topics · 2165561 to 2160964 · 700 members ·
	Saturday Jan 17 2009 v 5 n 27 view this issue	Welcome to the 235th issue. A good chunk of it consists of all (?) of the topics about the Thylacene on FR. It also represents the last GGG Digest during the Presidency of George W. Bush. We will miss you President Bush. We've hit 700 members, or as JimRob would say, "woo hoo!" Something like eighteen months ago, former GGG manager and FReeper FairOpinion was telling me we would hit 700 really soon now. Anyway, a big thank you to all who made this happen, including JimRob and the rest of the FreeRepublic management. Remember, it's the Freepathon! I ate too much. I feel like one of those whales with a bad inner ear. ['Civ gives up, goes to bed] I kept falling asleep while editing this last night. I had planned to post it a day early, but didn't dare, because I couldn't be sure that the editing made any sense. I'd make a change, and couldn't figure out why the change didn't appear. It turned out that I'd fallen asleep and never made the change. When I just checked for the number of topics (41), I came up with 40; I'd copied one from the original file and fell asleep without pasting it into this file. Just had to make up a couple of side-by-side test files to find which one I'd left out. Anyway, I'm pretty confident and secure with the current edit, so as soon as I can I plan to post it. I'm still fiddling a bit with the header of the actual digest message (not this ping message). I may experiment with making the actual digest resemble the faux-blog formatting used here. Seems like a lot of work, though. The new layout is a minor tweaking of what I've been using for more than four years, easy to do template-style, and is easy for readers to follow. Perhaps I'll change the ping messages instead. Be sure to check Homer_J_Simpson's topics, many of which are based on archival newspaper articles, usually 70 years ago that day. Visit the Free Republic Memorial Wall -- a history-related feature of FR. Donate to FreeRepublic.
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[SunkenCiv]

Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #236 Saturday, January 24, 2009
Paleontology
Dinosaur fossils suggest speedy extinction - Arctic find challenges the idea that the massive...
	01/22/2009 2:45:42 AM PST · Posted by neverdem · 21 replies · 729+ views Nature News | 19 January 2009 | Matt Kaplan Arctic find challenges the idea that the massive reptiles declined slowly. A new fossil find suggests the dinosaurs may have died out quickly.Ablestock / Alamy Fossils uncovered recently in the Arctic support the idea that dinosaurs died off rapidly -- perhaps as the result of a massive meteor hitting Earth. The finding contravenes the idea that dinosaurs were already declining by this time.Geological evidence indicates that an impact occurred near the Yucatan Peninsula at the end of the Cretaceous 66 million years ago. But whether the event created an all-out apocalypse that wiped out the dinosaurs is still a matter...
Catastrophism and Astronomy
Correlation demonstrated between cosmic rays and temperature of the stratosphere
	01/23/2009 11:14:46 PM PST · Posted by neverdem · 20 replies wattsupwiththat.com | 2009/01/22 | Anthony Watts This offers renewed hope for Svensmark's theory of cosmic ray modulation of earth's cloud cover. Here is an interesting correlation published just yesterday in GRL. Cosmic rays detected deep underground reveal secrets of the upper atmosphere Watch the video animation here (MPEG video will play in your media player) Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and led by scientists from the UK's National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this remarkable study shows how the number of high-energy cosmic-rays reaching a detector deep underground, closely matches temperature measurements in the upper atmosphere...
Flood, Here Comes the Flood
Danube Delta Holds Answers to "Noah's Flood' Debate [science]
	01/23/2009 8:15:56 PM PST · Posted by Coyoteman · 19 replies Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution | January 22, 2009 | Media Relations Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions drown the shores of the Black Sea 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic settlements around its perimeter? A geologist with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and two Romanian colleagues report in the January issue of Quaternary Science Reviews that, if the flood occurred at all, it was much smaller than previously proposed by other researchers. Using sediment cores from the delta of the Danube River, which empties into the Black Sea, the researchers determined sea level was approximately 30 meters below present levels -- rather than the 80 meters others hypothesized. "We don't...
Climate
Natural disasters doomed early civilization (Supe Valley along the Peruvian coast)
	01/19/2009 7:57:00 PM PST · Posted by NormsRevenge · 16 replies · 486+ views AP on Yahoo | 1/19/09 | AP WASHINGTON -- Nature turned against one of America's early civilizations 3,600 years ago, when researchers say earthquakes and floods, followed by blowing sand, drove away residents of an area that is now in Peru. "This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, boom, they just got the props knocked out from under them," anthropologist Mike Moseley of the University of Florida said in a statement. Moseley and colleagues were studying civilization of the Supe Valley along the Peruvian coast, which was established up to 5,800...
PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
Rock shelter painting by American Indian likely circa 1000-1600[Tennessee]
	01/18/2009 5:51:10 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 18 replies · 569+ views Knox News | 18 Jan 2009 | Morgan Simmons Finding an Aladdin's cave Cory Holliday almost didn't see the stick figure painted on the sandstone. His first impression was that it was a clever fake. A cave specialist for the Tennessee chapter of The Nature Conservancy, Holliday was searching for caves on a 4,200-acre tract in a remote part of Fentress County on the Cumberland Plateau. It was winter, and he heard water. Thinking there might be a cave nearby, he hiked down to the base of a bluff, where he discovered a rocky alcove bisected by a 10-foot waterfall. On the roof of a nearby south-facing rock shelter...
Australia and the Pacific
Pacific people spread from Taiwan
	01/23/2009 12:08:54 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 10 replies The University of Auckland-New Zealand | 23 Jan 2009 | University of Auckland New research into language evolution suggests most Pacific populations originated in Taiwan around 5,200 years ago. Scientists at The University of Auckland have used sophisticated computer analyses on vocabulary from 400 Austronesian languages to uncover how the Pacific was settled. "The Austronesian language family is one of the largest in the world, with 1200 languages spread across the Pacific," says Professor Russell Gray of the Department of Psychology. "The settlement of the Pacific is one of the most remarkable prehistoric human population expansions. By studying the basic vocabulary from these languages, such as words for animals, simple verbs, colours and...
Biology and Cryptobiology
Tuatara fossil props up Moa's Ark theory for NZ animal live
	01/21/2009 2:23:18 AM PST · Posted by DieHard the Hunter · 8 replies · 326+ views TV3 (New Zealand) | Wed, Jan 21 2009 21h09 | NZPA Tuatara fossil props up Moa's Ark theory for NZ animal life Wed, 21 Jan 2009 9:09p.m. The discovery of a tuatara fossil in the South Island is helping prop up the "Moa's Ark" theory that some parts of New Zealand have always stayed above the sea surface. Scientists said the fossil provided strong evidence that the ancestor of the present-day tuatara covered the Zealandia landmass as it split from Gondwana, 82 million years ago.
India
In Pakistan, a site older than Mohenjodaro [INDUS VALLEY]
	01/23/2009 10:11:18 AM PST · Posted by MyTwoCopperCoins · 11 replies The Press Trust of India | 23 Jan 2009, 2320 hrs | The Press Trust of India An archaeological site dating back about 5,500 years and believed to be older than Mohenjodaro has been found in Sindh province. A team of 22 archaeologists found semi-precious and precious stones and utensils made of clay, copper and other metals during an excavation in Lakhian Jo Daro in Sukkur district on Thursday. "At present, we can say that it is older than Mohenjodaro", Ghulam Mustafa Shar, the director of the Lakhian Jo Daro project, said. Shar said the remains of a "faience" or tin-glazed pottery factory had been found at the site. It is believed to be of the era...
Pages
DNA Testing May Unlock Secrets Of Medieval Manuscripts
	01/18/2009 4:53:33 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 16 replies · 356+ views ScienceDaily | Jan. 17, 2009 | Unknown > Many medieval manuscripts were written on parchment made from animal skin, and NC State Assistant Professor of English Timothy Stinson is working to perfect techniques for extracting and analyzing the DNA contained in these skins with the long-term goal of creating a genetic database that can be used to determine when and where a manuscript was written. "Dating and localizing manuscripts have historically presented persistent problems," Stinson says, "because they have largely been based on the handwriting and dialect of the scribes who created the manuscripts -- techniques that have proven unreliable for a number of reasons." >
Archaeoastronomy and Megaliths
Militant Druids fight museum over a 4,000-year-old skeleton called Charlie[UK]
	01/18/2009 2:32:39 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 28 replies · 382+ views Daily Mail | 18 Jan 2009 | Alun Rees and Jonathan Petre A group of militant Druids has forced an expensive official inquiry after demanding that a museum releases a 4,000-year-old skeleton called 'Charlie' so they can rebury it. They claim the bones of a young girl and seven other sets of prehistoric remains excavated near the ancient stone circle in Avebury, Wiltshire, are their 'tribal ancestors'. If their claim is rejected, they have threatened to take a test case to the High Court under the Human Rights Act. The row has triggered two years of meetings and reports by state-funded English Heritage and the charity The National Trust, which have been...
British Isles
Huge Iron Age haul of coins found
	01/18/2009 6:47:45 AM PST · Posted by csvset · 37 replies · 1,113+ views BBC | 17 January 2009 | BBC One of the UK's largest hauls of Iron Age gold coins has been found in Suffolk. The 824 so-called staters were found in a broken pottery jar buried in a field near Wickham Market using a metal detector. Jude Plouviez, of the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, said the coins dated from 40BC to AD15. They are thought to have been minted by predecessors of the Iceni Queen Boudicca. Ms Plouviez said their value when in circulation had been estimated at a modern equivalent of between £500,000 and £1m, but they were likely to be worth less than that now....
Prehistoric gold coins found in Suffolk[UK]
	01/18/2009 2:24:46 PM PST · Posted by BGHater · 20 replies · 507+ views EDP 24 | 17 Jan 2009 | EDP 24 The largest hoard of prehistoric gold coins in Britain in modern times has been discovered by a metal detectorist in Suffolk, it emerged today. The collection of 824 gold staters was found in a broken pottery jar buried in a field near Wickham Market. Jude Plouviez, of the Suffolk County Council Archaeological Service, said the coins dated from 40BC to AD15 and were thought to have been minted by predecessors of Boudicca - the Iceni Queen who spearheaded a revolt against occupying Roman forces. Their value when in circulation had been estimated at a modern equivalent of between £500,000 and...
Sweet Swan of Avon
Shakespeare and Deep England
	01/17/2009 2:09:39 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 13 replies · 219+ views The Times (London) | January 7, 2009 | John Guy Jonathan Bate's eloquent evocation of the man from WarwickshireAt last we have a new kind of biography of Shakespeare. Starting from Ben Jonson's description of Shakespeare as "Soul of the Age", and shunning "the deadening march of chronological sequence that is biography's besetting vice", Jonathan Bate selects only the material that, he believes, will help to reveal Shakespeare's cultural DNA. Structuring this loosely around the theme of the Seven Ages of Man from Jaques's speech in As You Like It, Bate sweeps majestically backwards and forwards in time, moving between history and criticism, appropriating whatever best brings together Shakespeare's life,...
Middle Ages and Renaissance
Secrets Of Stradivarius' Unique Sound Revealed
	01/22/2009 12:33:27 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 54 replies · 1,358+ views Texas A&M | January 22, 2009 | Unknown For centuries, violin makers have tried and failed to reproduce the pristine sound of Stradivarius and Guarneri violins, but after 33 years of work put into the project, a Texas A&M University professor is confident the veil of mystery has now been lifted. Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, first theorized in 1976 that chemicals used on the instruments -- not merely the wood and the construction -- are responsible for the distinctive sound of these violins. His controversial theory has now received definitive experimental support through collaboration with Renald Guillemette, director of the electron microprobe laboratory in the...
Not So Ancient Autopsies
Danish Experts Ask to Open Astronomer Tycho Brahe's Grave
	01/22/2009 2:48:03 PM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 22 replies · 305+ views Radio Prague | 1/21/09 | Jan Richter A Renaissance mystery is beginning to unravel in Prague. A team of experts from Denmark have asked the authorities for permission to open and explore the grave of the Danish-born astronomer Tycho Brahe who died in Prague in 1601. They are hoping to learn more about one of the most famous scholars of the time -- and perhaps to throw more light on his mysterious death. Tycho Brahe story of alchemists and assassins might soon be added to the annals of one of the most glorious eras in the history of Prague. A team of experts from Denmark would like...
Oh So Mysteriouso
Even at 200, Poe endures in pop culture (Bicentennial today)
	01/19/2009 8:27:17 AM PST · Posted by Borges · 8 replies · 233+ views Yahoo - AP | 01/19/09 | BEN NUCKOLS "Lisa, that wasn't scary, even for a poem!" Bart Simpson complains after his sister reads Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" in a classic Halloween episode. "Well, it was written in 1845!" Lisa says. "Maybe people were easier to scare back then!" Jaded cartoon kids aside, Poe still does scare people -- even 200 years after his birth. His tales of gothic horror and grisly murder retain their grip on the imagination. His sad, short life and mysterious death feed his legend. Even the daguerreotypes of a pallid, death-haunted Poe burnish his image as a master of the macabre, a man...
Edgar Allan Poe at 200
	01/19/2009 11:34:53 AM PST · Posted by PurpleMan · 14 replies · 230+ views NYTimes | January 19, 2009 | WILLIAM S. NIEDERKORN Edgar Allan Poe reaches his second century mark today. The young United States was a strange place for literary genius to develop, and Poe's career was relatively short (he died at 40, on Oct. 7, 1849), but through his works he inspired generations of writers throughout the world, and there has been no letup in the 21st century.
The DNA of Detection (Poe7 & Mysteries)
	01/19/2009 11:43:32 AM PST · Posted by nickcarraway · 4 replies · 106+ views BBC As the bicentenary of Edgar Allan Poe is celebrated, fans should be thanking him for his invention of the modern detective genre, writes crime fiction author Andrew Taylor. Bestseller lists and library lending figures tell the same story - crime and detective stories are more popular than ever, and their success has spilled over into film and TV drama. It's remarkable how many of the genre's classic elements can be traced back to the feverishly fertile imagination of one man, Edgar Allan Poe. Once you start looking, the clues are everywhere. Born 200 years ago, on 19 January 1809, Poe...
Epidemics, Pandemics, Plagues, the Sniffles
WSJ: Avian Virus Caused The 1918 Pandemic, New Studies Show
	10/06/2005 5:34:51 AM PDT · Posted by OESY · 24 replies · 1,246+ views Wall Street Journal | October 6, 2005 | BETSY MCKAY ...After nearly a decade of research, teams of scientists said yesterday that they had re-created the historic influenza virus that by some estimates killed 50 million people world-wide in 1918 and 1919. The scientists concluded that the virus originated as an avian bug and then adapted and spread in humans by undergoing much simpler changes than many experts had previously thought were needed for a pandemic. Some mutations of the 1918 virus have been detected in the current avian-flu virus, suggesting the bug "might be going down a similar path that led to 1918,".... The studies, published yesterday in the...
Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
Ancient Persians 'Gassed Romans'
	01/19/2009 10:43:11 AM PST · Posted by Steelfish · 9 replies · 566+ views BBCNews | January 19, 2009 Ancient Persians 'gassed Romans' By Tanya Syed BBC News Remains in the city wall suggest toxic gases were used in a siege on the city Ancient Persians were the first to use chemical warfare against their enemies, a study has suggested. A UK researcher said he found evidence that the Persian Empire used poisonous gases on the Roman city of Dura, Eastern Syria, in the 3rd Century AD. The theory is based on the discovery of remains of about 20 Roman soldiers found at the base of the city wall. The findings were presented the Archaeological Institute of America's annual...
Moderate Islam
Al Qaeda hit by Black Death fear as medieval plague kills 40 terrorists at training camp
	01/19/2009 7:07:22 AM PST · Posted by Sammy67 · 199 replies · 4,412+ views DailyMail | 1/19/09 | DailyMailReporter Al Qaeda terrorists have been left fearing the Black Death plague after it wiped out at least 40 insurgents at an Algerian training camp, it was reported today. The horror disease, which killed 25 million people in medieval Europe, is understood to have been found in a militant's body dumped at a roadside. Terror group AQLIM (al Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb) was forced to turn its shelter in the Yakouren forests into mass graves and flee, it has been claimed. Now al Qaeda chiefs are said to fear the plague has been passed into other cells...
Egypt
Nile Delta fishery grows dramatically thanks to run-off of sewage, fertilizers
	01/20/2009 12:43:08 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 20 replies · 305+ views University of Rhode Island | Jan. 19, 2008 | Unknown Considered pollutants in the West, discharges help to feed millions in Egypt -- While many of the world's fisheries are in serious decline, the coastal Mediterranean fishery off the Nile Delta has expanded dramatically since the 1980s. The surprising cause of this expansion, which followed a collapse of the fishery after completion of the Aswan High Dam in 1965, is run-off of fertilizers and sewage discharges in the region, according to a researcher at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography. Autumn Oczkowski, a URI doctoral student, used stable isotopes of nitrogen to...
Greece
Ancient Greek homes doubled as pubs, brothels
	01/21/2009 12:58:41 PM PST · Posted by decimon · 27 replies · 662+ views Discovery Channel | Jan. 21, 2009 | Rossella Lorenzi A new analysis of archaeological remains might have solved the mystery of the elusive kapeleia, lively Greek taverns that have long puzzled archaeologists. Despite the kapeleia being featured prominently in classical plays, no tangible evidence of the drinking dens has ever been found.
Could the "Greenland example" help resolve the Parthenon Marbles dispute?
	03/03/2007 8:20:21 AM PST · Posted by aculeus · 4 replies · 318+ views The Art Newspaper | February 24, 2007 | By Martin Bailey LONDON. A possible solution to the Parthenon Marbles dispute between the British Museum and the Greek government has come from a most unlikely source -- a gathering in Greenland. Meeting in the depths of the Arctic winter, museum professionals and representatives of indigenous peoples recently assembled in the tiny capital of Nuuk (formerly Godthab) to discuss global strategies on repatriation of cultural heritage. The Greeks had originally decided to send Minister of Culture Georgios Voulgarakis, but when his officials examined the flight schedule, they realised that he would have to leave Athens for a whole week, missing too much government...
World War Eleven
Nazi angel of death Josef Mengele 'created twin town in Brazil'
	01/21/2009 7:24:39 PM PST · Posted by Free ThinkerNY · 20 replies · 649+ views telegraph.co.uk | January 21, 2009 | Nick Evans The steely hearted "Angel of Death", whose mission was to create a master race fit for the Third Reich, was the resident medic at Auschwitz from May 1943 until his flight in the face of the Red Army advance in January 1945. His task was to carry out experiments to discover by what method of genetic quirk twins were produced -- and then to artificially increase the Aryan birthrate for his master, Adolf Hitler. Now, a historian claims, Mengele's notorious experiments may have borne fruit. For years scientists have failed to discover why as many as one in five pregnancies...
Helix, Make Mine a Double
Rethinking The Genetic Theory Of Inheritance: Heritability May Not Be Limited To DNA
	01/21/2009 4:17:24 AM PST · Posted by decimon · 9 replies · 334+ views Science Daily | Jan. 20, 2008 | Unknown ScienceDaily (Jan. 20, 2009) -- Scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) have detected evidence that DNA may not be the only carrier of heritable information; a secondary molecular mechanism called epigenetics may also account for some inherited traits and diseases. These findings challenge the fundamental principles of genetics and inheritance, and potentially provide a new insight into the primary causes of human diseases.
Longer Perspectives
Humans 'could evolve into two species'
	10/19/2006 7:10:22 AM PDT · Posted by presidio9 · 123 replies · 2,612+ views The Australian | October 17, 2006 | Mark Henderson HUMANS could evolve into two sub-species within 100,000 years as social divisions produce a genetic underclass. The mating preferences of the rich, highly educated and well-nourished could ultimately drive their separation into a genetically distinct group that no longer interbreeds with less fortunate human beings, according to British scientist Oliver Curry. Dr Curry, a research associate in the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science of the London School of Economics, speculated that privileged humans might over tens of thousands of years evolve into a "gracile" subspecies, tall, thin, symmetrical, intelligent and creative. The rest would be shorter and...
Early America
A Flag of Conviction
	01/17/2009 11:39:06 AM PST · Posted by markomalley · 17 replies · 276+ views The Claremont Institute | 5/31/2002 | Matthew Robinson Christopher Gadsden's face and name may not be immortalized on any bill or coin, but this firebrand designed a symbol which, even through the swirling mists of time, is a reminder of the birth of the nation and the spirit that carried it to freedom. June 14 is Flag Day. On that day, of course, we remember the Stars and Stripes and the men who fought under that banner for freedom. Gadsden gave us another great flag, one that flew prominently during the American Revolution, under which many men fought and died. Gadsden's was the blazing yellow banner that sports...
Framer of the Framers
	01/17/2009 4:58:51 PM PST · Posted by Coleus · 8 replies · 229+ views thenewamerican | 01.09.09 | John Eidsmoe John Witherspoon was not only a Founding Father, but in his roles as preacher and professor he taught and influenced many of the great men of the Founding era.On November 15, 1794, a 72-year-old Presbyterian preacher lay dying on his farm near Princeton, New Jersey. In some ways he may have welcomed death. His wife had died five years earlier, and for over two years he had been blind, so his associates had to lead him into the pulpit, where he still preached with his usual earnestness and perhaps with more than his usual solemnity and animation. Even though his...
Revolutionary War papers restored
	01/21/2009 9:59:55 AM PST · Posted by Pharmboy · 33 replies · 467+ views UPI | Jan. 20, 2009 | Anon UPI Stringer PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 20 (UPI) -- After painstaking restoration, 5,400 Revolutionary War documents are ready to leave a Philadelphia conservation center for their home in New Jersey. The $700,000 project begun in 2005 has restored documents belonging to the New Jersey State Archives, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Tuesday. The 18th century papers, discolored, brittle and frayed, tell stories of patriots killed in battle, of spies for the British and of armies from both sides that destroyed property and stripped farms of crops and livestock. Using chemical baths and tissue-thin paper for repairs, snip... New Jersey saw more military engagements than any...
Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
DNA can reveal ancestors' lies and secrets
	01/18/2009 3:36:53 AM PST · Posted by decimon · 71 replies · 982+ views Los Angeles Times | Jan. 18, 2008 | Alan Zarembo In a search for their ancestors, more than 140 people with variations of the last name Kincaid have taken DNA tests and shared their results on the Internet. They have found war heroes, sailors and survivors of the Irish potato famine. They have also stumbled upon bastards, liars and two-timers. Much of it is ancient history, long-dead ancestors whose dalliances are part of the intrigue of amateur genealogy. But sometimes the findings strike closer to home.
end of digest #236 20090124