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· Saturday, July 25, 2009 · 28 topics · 2301071 to 2296278 · 720 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 262nd issue, which consists of a very manageable number of topics -- and yet is another of the recent run of excellent selection. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #262 Saturday, July 25, 2009 |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| DNA Not The Same In Every Cell Of Body |
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· 07/19/2009 7:46:56 PM PDT · · Posted by djf · · 332 replies · · 2,352+ views · · ScienceDaily · · july 16, 2009 · |
Research by a group of Montreal scientists calls into question one of the most basic assumptions of human genetics: that when it comes to DNA, every cell in the body is essentially identical to every other cell. Their results appear in the July issue of the journal Human Mutation. This discovery may undercut the rationale behind numerous large-scale genetic studies conducted over the last 15 years, studies which were supposed to isolate the causes of scores of human diseases. |
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| Who'll Pick Up The Check? | |
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| Male Sex Chromosome Losing Genes By Rapid Evolution, Study Reveals |
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· 07/18/2009 9:31:08 AM PDT · · Posted by steve-b · · 31 replies · · 894+ views · · Science Daily · · 7/17/09 · |
Scientists have long suspected that the sex chromosome that only males carry is deteriorating and could disappear entirely within a few million years, but until now, no one has understood the evolutionary processes that control this chromosome's demise. Now, a pair of Penn State scientists has discovered that this sex chromosome, the Y chromosome, has evolved at a much more rapid pace than its partner chromosome, the X chromosome, which both males and females carry. This rapid evolution of the Y chromosome has led to a dramatic loss of genes on the Y chromosome at a rate that, if maintained,... |
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| Will Chromosome Y Go Bye-Bye? |
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· 07/18/2009 9:59:43 PM PDT · · Posted by Steelfish · · 23 replies · · 570+ views · · ABCNews · · July 18th 2009 · |
Will Chromosome Y Go Bye-Bye? Is the End of Men Imminent? By RADHA CHITALE ABC News Medical Unit July 17, 2009 What makes a man a man? Socially, that is a complicated question. Genetically, however, it is as simple as a single Y chromosome. Is the male Y chromosome disappearing? But guys, that chromosome is in trouble. In a new study, researchers say there is a dramatic loss of genes from the human Y chromosome that eventually could lead to its complete disappearance -- in the next few millennia. While the Y chromosome's degeneration has been known to geneticists and... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Australian Aborigines Were Once Indians - Study |
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· 07/22/2009 5:57:18 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 14 replies · · 388+ views · · Scientific Blogging · · July 21st 2009 · · News Staff · |
New genetic research in BMC Evolutionary Biology found telltale mutations in modern-day Indian populations that are exclusively shared by Aborigines. The new study indicates that Australian Aborigines initially arrived via south Asia. Dr Raghavendra Rao worked with a team of researchers from the Anthropological Survey of India to sequence 966 complete mitochondrial DNA genomes from Indian 'relic populations'. He said, "Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother and so allows us to accurately trace ancestry. We found certain mutations in the DNA sequences of the Indian tribes we sampled that are specific to Australian Aborigines. This shared ancestry suggests... |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| Info gathering on the exiled |
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· 07/19/2009 4:39:17 PM PDT · · Posted by Michel12 · · 8 replies · · 243+ views · · Jerusalem Post · · July 16 2009 · · ABRAHAM RABINOVICH · |
King Jehoiachin was only 18 years old and had occupied the throne of Judah barely three months when he was led off into Babylonian captivity in 598 BCE together with his wives, his mother, his servants, his eunuchs and thousands of "the chief men of the land." But what happened to them when they reached Babylon? And what happened there to the tens of thousands of others who joined them in exile when the First Temple was destroyed a decade later? The Bible tells us of the return to Judah half a century later but virtually nothing of what the... |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Long-lost Mosaic Seraphim Uncovered at Istanbul's Hagia Sophia |
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· 07/25/2009 3:41:57 PM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 12 replies · · 318+ views · · BlackCordelias · · July 24, 2009 · |
Note: Below image is the Archangel Gabriel, not one of the newly uncovered images. Restoration workers have uncovered a well-preserved, long-hidden mosaic face of an angel at the former Byzantine cathedral of Haghia Sophia in Istanbul, an official said Friday.The seraphim figure -- one of two located on the side of a dome -- had been covered up along with the building's other Christian mosaics shortly after Constantinople -- the former name for Istanbul -- fell to the Ottomans in 1453 and the cathedral was... |
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| Rome and Italy | |
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| Mysterious ancient altar found in Roman fort (In England) |
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· 07/25/2009 7:09:40 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 26 replies · · 621+ views · · Discovery · · Rossella Lorenzi · |
This 1.5-ton, four-foot high carved stone relic shows a godlike figure standing on a bull, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a battle axe in the other. It is a representation of the Anatolian god Juppiter of Doliche, which was believed to be a favorite deity among Roman soldiers. A massive altar dedicated to an eastern cult deity has emerged during excavations of a Roman fort in northern England. Weighing 1.5 tons, the four-foot high ornately carved stone relic, was unearthed at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, which was built by order of the Emperor Hadrian between 122-30 A.D.... |
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| Underwater Archaeology | |
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| Graveyard of sunken Roman ships found |
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· 07/23/2009 6:49:54 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 3 replies · · 532+ views · · Reuters · · July 23, 2009 · · Daniel Flynn · |
A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a "graveyard" of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene. The trading vessels, dating from the first century BC to the fifth century AD, lie more than 100 meters underwater and are amongst the deepest wrecks discovered in the Mediterranean in recent years, the researchers said on Thursday. Part of an archipelago situated halfway between Rome and Naples on Italy's west coast, Ventotene historically served as a place of shelter during rough weather in the Tyrrhenian Sea. |
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| Neandertal / Neanderthal | |
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| Prehistoric cold case shows hints of interspecies homicide |
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· 07/20/2009 2:43:00 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 26 replies · · 512+ views · · Duke University · · Jul 20, 2009 · · Unknown · |
DURHAM, N.C. -- The wound that ultimately killed a Neandertal man between 50,000 and 75,000 years was most likely caused by a thrown spear, the kind modern humans used but Neandertals did not, according to Duke University-led research. "What we've got is a rib injury, with any number of scenarios that could explain it," said Steven Churchill, an associate professor of evolutionary anthropology at Duke. "We're not suggesting there was a blitzkrieg, with modern humans marching across the land and executing the Neandertals. I want to say that loud and clear." But Churchill's analysis indicates the wound was from a... |
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| Human Stabbed a Neanderthal, Evidence Suggests |
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· 07/22/2009 3:53:18 PM PDT · · Posted by rdl6989 · · 27 replies · · 436+ views · · Livescience.com · · 21 July 2009 · |
Newly analyzed remains suggest that a modern human killed a Neanderthal man in what is now Iraq between 50,000 and 75,000 years ago. The finding is scant but tantalizing evidence for a theory that modern humans helped to kill off the Neanderthals. The probable weapon of choice: A thrown spear. The evidence: A lethal wound on the remains of a Neanderthal skeleton. |
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| The Mysterious Downfall of the Neandertals |
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· 07/23/2009 5:12:15 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 29 replies · · 561+ views · · Scientific American · · August 2009 · · Kate Wong · |
Key Concepts * Neandertals, our closest relatives, ruled Europe and western Asia for more than 200,000 years. But sometime after 28,000 years ago, they vanished. * Scientists have long debated what led to their disappearance. The latest extinction theories focus on climate change and subtle differences in behavior and biology that might have given modern humans an advantage over the Neandertals. |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Peking Man Lived 200,000 Years Earlier Than Thought |
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· 07/23/2009 9:11:55 PM PDT · · Posted by Ethan Clive Osgoode · · 39 replies · · 616+ views · · National Geographic · · March 12, 2009 · · Brian Handwerk · |
Peking man -- the group of early humans whose 1920s discovery gave a big boost to the theory of evolution -- lived hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously believed, a new study says. The new dates would also place Peking man in a more hospitable, cooler time period in China's Zhoukoudian region, which today is the world's foremost source of Homo erectus fossils. Ciochon hypothesizes that a prolonged mass migration of Homo erectus from Africa, which began about two million years ago, eventually came to something like a fork in the road. Reaching southern China, the early humans would have come upon... |
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| Pandemics, Epidemics, Plagues, the Sniffles | |
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| Wild chimpanzees get AIDS-like illness - Finding challenges long-held assumption. |
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· 07/22/2009 8:22:24 PM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 14 replies · · 277+ views · · Nature News · · 22 July 2009 · · Erika Check Hayden · |
Some chimps in Gombe National Park have been succumbing to an AIDS-like disease.Michael L. Wilson Researchers have overturned a decade-old consensus that chimpanzees cannot fall ill as a result of infection with a virus similar to HIV.Previously, scientists had thought that chimpanzees were like other non-human primates that can become infected with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) -- which is closely related to HIV -- but do not go on to be seriously sickened by the virus.The results suggest that it will not be possible to find the key to HIV immunity in the chimpanzee genome, as scientists had hoped. However,... |
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| Diet and Cuisine | |
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| Vitamin D Insufficiency in Sunny Climates, Too |
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· 07/21/2009 8:48:44 AM PDT · · Posted by neverdem · · 51 replies · · 893+ views · · Family Practice News · · 1 July 2009 · · DIANA MAHONEY · |
BOSTON -- The high prevalence of vitamin D deficiency found in a cohort of healthy children in a sunny Southwestern climate has prompted a call by the study's investigators for generalized routine screening of vitamin D levels among all children. In a study designed to assess vitamin D levels in children living in a region with year-round sunshine and to compare vitamin D levels in children with vague musculoskeletal pain with those of children without pain, Dr. Elizabeth A. Szalay and her colleagues at the University of New Mexico Hospital in Albuquerque retrospectively studied the serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Elasmosaurs: Predators of Ancient Seas |
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· 07/19/2009 3:42:33 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 11 replies · · 544+ views · · Scientific Blogging · · July 14th 2009 · · Heidi Henderson · |
Until recently, elasmosaurs had never before been found in British Columbia. Nor had any other aquatic plesiosaurs, though similar creatures had been found on the coast of California and in the centre of North America, where once a central seaway split the continent. Elasmosaurs swam the seas for over 130 million years, feeding on the plentiful fish and shellfish. |
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| China's Dinosaur Fossils: Vast, but Are They Real? |
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· 07/24/2009 2:06:00 AM PDT · · Posted by Ethan Clive Osgoode · · 7 replies · · 245+ views · · Time · · April 5, 2009 · · Jessie Jiang and Simon Elegant · |
But Tianyu is not short on natural history. In one hall alone, 480 dinosaur fossils are randomly placed in glass cases or left in the open air around a room the size of a basketball court, along with Triassic fish and other more recent fossils, primarily from different parts of China. "We are the world's number one," says Zheng Xiaoting, director and keeper of the Tianyu (which means "universe" in Chinese) Natural History Museum's collection of thousands of dinosaur fossils. Though no official records of the collection's number exist, several Chinese paleontologists echo Zheng's claim that Tianyu houses the world's... |
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| The Vikings | |
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| Pre-Columbian Map of North America Could Be Authentic--Or not |
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· 07/23/2009 4:35:39 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 32 replies · · 565+ views · · Scientific American · · July 22, 2009 · · Brendan Borrell · |
A Danish art conservator claims that the controversial Vinland Map of America, published prior to Christopher Columbus's landfall, may not be a forgery after all. "We have so far found no reason to believe that the Vinland Map is the result of a modern forgery," says René Larsen of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. Reuters first publicized his results last week but provided none of the skepticism being voiced by veterans in the field. The map mysteriously emerged in a Geneva bookshop in 1957 depicting a "new" and "fertile" land to the west that Viking explorer Leif Eriksson... |
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| Precolumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| UC Scientists Determine That Ancient Maya Practiced Forest Conservation -- 3,000 Years Ago |
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· 07/22/2009 2:07:26 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 24 replies · · 256+ views · · University of Cincinnati · · 7/20/2009 · · Wendy Beckman · |
As published in the July issue of the "Journal of Archaeological Science," paleoethnobotanist David Lentz of the University of Cincinnati has concluded that not only did the Maya people practice forest management, but when they abandoned their forest conservation practices it was to the detriment of the entire Maya culture. "From our research we have learned that the Maya were deliberately conserving forest resources," says David Lentz, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Cincinnati and executive director of the Cincinnati Center for Field Studies. "Their deliberate conservation practices can be observed in the wood they used for... |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| Did a Comet Cause a North American Die-Off around 13,000 Years Ago? |
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· 07/23/2009 7:00:35 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 56 replies · · 641+ views · · Scientific American · · July 20, 2009 · · Brendan Borrell · |
Researchers have found shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds on one of California's Channel Islands, which they say is the strongest evidence yet that a comet exploded in the atmosphere above North America, causing widespread extinctions there around 12,900 years ago... In 2007 researchers theorized that a comet set off continental fires that led to the mysterious disappearance of the Clovis people and the extermination of 35 mammal genera, including mammoths, mastodons, ground sloths and camels. The team documented a "black mat" of charcoal throughout North America that contains high levels of iridium, magnetic spheres, and nano-diamonds, which are consistent with such an... |
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| Humans to Blame for Extinction? - Not Necessarily So ... |
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· 07/21/2009 1:09:33 PM PDT · · Posted by George - the Other · · 21 replies · · 390+ views · · Science News · · July 21, 2009 · · Science News · |
"These findings are inconsistent with the alternative and already hotly debated theory that overhunting by Clovis people led to the rapid extinction of large mammals at the end of the ice age, the research team argues in the PNAS paper." |
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| Hey There Little Insect | |
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| Venus flytrap origins uncovered |
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· 07/21/2009 10:52:41 PM PDT · · Posted by JoeProBono · · 20 replies · · 613+ views · · bbc · |
The origin of the voracious Venus flytrap has been uncovered. The flytrap, and one other carnivorous snap-trap plant which grows underwater, evolved from a more conventional relative that had sticky leaves. Over time, the plants added elaborate structures and weapons such as trigger hairs and teeth to trap and immobilise their meaty prey, botanists say. Ultimately, the need to hunt and eat ever larger animals drove the plants' evolution, say the scientists. Carnivorous plants come in many forms, and are known to have independently evolved at least six separate times. The Venus flytrap acts like an animal, it moves fast... |
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
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| Shaming the Muslims Out of Islam |
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· 07/21/2009 9:49:01 AM PDT · · Posted by ventanax5 · · 21 replies · · 700+ views · · Political Islam · · Bill Warner · |
When I read MA Khan's new book, Islamic Jihad, I was struck by two things, the high quality of his scholarship and an emerging historical trend. Khan is firmly in the Foundationalist School of scholarship. He does not indulge opinion, but bases his work on the Islamic doctrine of jihad and its historical effects on civilization, with a focus on the destruction of India. He investigates and documents two little known areas--the Sufis and the enslavement of the Hindus. The excellence of his book is part of an historic pattern. When Islam attacked us on September 11, 2001 we were... |
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| Early America | |
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| Mass. to search for lost Revolutionary War ship |
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· 07/19/2009 11:01:50 PM PDT · · Posted by Pharmboy · · 19 replies · · 545+ views · · AP via google · · July 19, 2009 · · STEVE LeBLANC · |
BOSTON -- Somewhere along an industrial stretch of river pocked with rotting piers and towering salt piles north of Boston lies the answer to one of the great riddles of the Revolutionary war. Where is the final resting place of the British schooner, the HMS Diana? The river -- known as Chelsea Creek -- separates the city of Chelsea from the East Boston neighborhood of Boston. Today the river is plied by oil tankers and is home to a landscape dotted with the city's iconic tripledeckers. But more than 200 years ago, the creek was the site of one of... |
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| The Framers | |
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| the 23rd Amendment |
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· 07/21/2009 9:54:21 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 4 replies · · 280+ views · · Constitution of the United States, via FindLaw et al · · proposed June 17, 1960, ratified March 29, 1961 · · The Framers et al · |
Section 1. : The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| The Nazi monster recruited by MI6 to spy for Britain |
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· 07/24/2009 6:14:23 PM PDT · · Posted by nickcarraway · · 5 replies · · 352+ views · · Daily Mail · · 24th July 2009 · · TONY RENNELL · |
Friedrich Buchardt was a clever man, an intellectual and a polymath equally at home practising law or writing papers on economics and geography. He was also a cold-blooded killer of monstrous proportions. In Nazi Germany, he put his great brain to twisted issues of race and, in particular, the distribution of Jewish communities in the areas to the east of the Reich - Poland and Russia. When Hitler's armies then invaded these lands, he came up with a scale for measuring the 'German-ness' of the overrun people on a scale from one to five. But the handsome, thirty-something academic was... |
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| Time is running out' for local piece of black heritage (Historic Colored Officer Club) |
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· 07/19/2009 6:34:39 AM PDT · · Posted by SandRat · · 15 replies · · 386+ views · · Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Review · · Bill Hess · |
FORT HUACHUCA -- For years, Building 66050 has been vacant. It is deteriorating, but members of the Southwest Association of Buffalo Soldiers are determined to save the structure, which during World War II housed the Colored Officers Club. The building, its paint now peeling, windows broken and interior unsafe, is where black entertainers such as Lena Horne would come to the post to perform for black soldiers when the Army was segregated. The fort is where two black divisions, the 92nd and 93rd, trained before heading off to combat in World War II. One division went to Italy and the... |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| A 17th century mission to the Moon |
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· 07/18/2009 2:43:25 PM PDT · · Posted by LibWhacker · · 15 replies · · 547+ views · · SkyMania · · 7/18/09 · · Paul Sutherland · |
The world is celebrating the amazing journey that Apollo 11 made to the Moon 40 years ago. But few realise that an early bid to reach the Moon was launched from England, way back in the 17th century. Wilkins and Hooke aboard their spaceship Incredible as it may seem, one of the greatest scientific minds of the time, Dr John Wilkins, a founder of the Royal Society, was planning his own lunar mission four centuries ago around the time of the English Civil War. It wasn't hot air either. Inspired by the great voyages of discovery around the globe... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Iceland's secret? Belief in elves.. |
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· 07/18/2009 10:41:47 PM PDT · · Posted by Slings and Arrows · · 43 replies · · 690+ views · · TimesOnline [UK] · · April 14, 2009 · · Bess Twiston-Davies · |
Bess writes: Surely Icelanders don't believe in Elves? It's a matter of earnest debate on the New York Mag where John Moody, who lives in Iceland responds to this Vanity Fair article on the country's financial meltdown. The debate centres on this VF claim that Alcoa, Iceland's largest aluminium company had to "defer to a government expert" in 2004 while scouring a potential site for a smelting plant to "certify that no elves were on or under it." The writer, Michael Lewis reports "It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman told me, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, "we couldn't as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people." |
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| end of digest #262 20090725 | |
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· Saturday, July 25, 2009 · 28 topics · 2301071 to 2296278 · 720 members · |
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Saturday |
Welcome to the 262nd issue, which consists of a very manageable number of topics -- and yet is another of the recent run of excellent selection. |
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| Gods, Graves, Glyphs Weekly Digest #263 Saturday, August 1, 2009 |
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| The Vikings | |
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| 51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit? |
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· 07/28/2009 1:34:43 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 71 replies · 1,461+ views · · National Geographic News · · July 28, 2009 · · James Owen in London · |
Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young men -- their heads stacked neatly to the side -- have been found in a thousand-year-old pit in southern England, according to carbon-dating results released earlier this month. The mass burial took place at a time when the English were battling Viking invaders, say archaeologists who are now trying to verify the identity of the slain. The dead are thought to have been war captives, possibly Vikings, whose heads were hacked off with swords or axes... Many of the skeletons have deep cut marks to the skull and jaw as well... |
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| 51 Headless Vikings Found in English Execution Pit? |
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· 07/28/2009 7:38:47 PM PDT · · Posted by pissant · · 41 replies · 1,221+ views · · National Geographic · · 7/28/09 · · James Owen · |
Naked, beheaded, and tangled, the bodies of 51 young men -- their heads stacked neatly to the side -- have been found in a thousand-year-old pit in southern England, according to carbon-dating results released earlier this month. The mass burial took place at a time when the English were battling Viking invaders, say archaeologists who are now trying to verify the identity of the slain. The dead are thought to have been war captives, possibly Vikings, whose heads were hacked off with swords or axes, according to excavation leader David Score of Oxford Archaeology, an archaeological-services company. Announced in June, the pit discovery took... |
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| British Isles | |
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| Sutton Hoo, Suffolk: On the trail of the Anglo-Saxons |
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· 07/28/2009 7:05:17 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 13 replies · 312+ views · · Telegraph · · JUL 28, 2009 · · Sophie Campbell · |
'When I visit, the surrounding meadow is shimmering with heat, as it would have been in that long hot summer before the war' Photo: JOHN ROBERTSON The sherry party that Mrs Edith Pretty threw at her home above the River Deben in Suffolk on July 25 1939 was one of those occasions that everyone remembers for the wrong reasons. The invitation, dispatched to the great and good of the locality -- including the curator of the Ipswich Museum and the Lord Lieutenant of Suffolk -- was to celebrate the discovery of a "Viking ship" buried on her land. Along with... |
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| Ancient Autopsies | |
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| Ancient Britain Had Apartheid-Like Society, Study Suggests |
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· 07/28/2009 1:25:28 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 54 replies · 861+ views · · National Geographic News · · July 21, 2006 · · Kate Ravilious · |
When Anglo-Saxons first arrived in Britain 1,600 years ago, they created an apartheid-like society that oppressed the native Britons and wiped out almost all of the British gene pool, according to a new study. By treating Britons like slaves and imposing strict rules, the small band of Anglo-Saxons -- who had come from what is now Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands -- quickly dominated the country, leaving a legacy of Germanic genes and the English language, both of which still dominate Britain today. The new theory helps explain historical, archaeological, and genetic evidence that until now had seemed contradictory, including... |
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| Africa | |
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| African Slavery Historical Perspective |
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· 07/26/2009 4:48:45 PM PDT · · Posted by sushiman · · 13 replies · 68+ views · · ATLAH · · 7/26/09 · · James D. Manning · |
Dr. James David Manning ponders the question of whether or not blacks feel guilty about the slave trade |
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| Let's Have Jerusalem | |
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| J'lem: Rare 2nd Temple inscription found |
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· 07/29/2009 10:03:15 AM PDT · · Posted by Nachum · · 18 replies · 642+ views · · Jerusalem Post · · 7/29/09 · · staff · |
A unique ten-line Aramaic inscription on the side of a stone cup commonly used for ritual purity during Second Temple times was recently uncovered during archaeological excavations on Jerusalem's Mount Zion, The Jerusalem Post learned on Wednesday. Inscriptions of this kind are extremely rare and only a handful have been found in scientific excavations made within the city. |
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| Stone Vessel with 'Priestly Inscription' Uncovered In Jerusalem |
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· 07/31/2009 8:47:34 AM PDT · · Posted by NYer · · 8 replies · 414+ views · · Arutz Sheva · · July 31, 2009 · · Hana Levi Julian and Gil Ronen · |
A rare 2,000-year-old ritual vessel made of limestone and inscribed with 10 lines of text has been discovered in an excavation near the Zion Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. It is an unprecedented find, according to Dr. Shimon Gibson, the archaeologist who heads the University of North Carolina team conducting the dig. "Such stone vessels were used in connection with maintaining ritual purity related to Temple worship, and they are found in abundance in areas where the priests lived," Gibson reported. "We have found a dozen or more on our site over the past three years. However, to have ten... |
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| Navigation | |
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| Business Models in Antiquity |
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· 07/27/2009 9:47:42 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 19 replies · 290+ views · · The Globalist · · Tuesday, July 21, 2009 · · Karl Moore and David C. Lewis · |
The Phoenicians were not the first ancient people to sponsor long-distance seaborne trade, but they and their Carthaginian children were the first to perfect it. They are the real pioneers of what we will call maritime capitalism. How did they do it? By taking advantage of a unique window of opportunity. During the Middle Bronze Age (traditionally dated to the first half of the second millennium BCE), first Babylon and then Egypt dominated the Middle East. As their power faded, no single power dominated. In this climate of peace and stability, trade took the place of war. Babylonia tried to... |
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| Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran | |
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| Tales of Persia's Wondrous Past [The "Shahnameh' mourns the loss of Iran's pre-Islamic...] |
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· 07/25/2009 7:51:02 PM PDT · · Posted by sionnsar · · 27 replies · 114+ views · · Wall Street Journal: Leisure & Arts · · 7/25/2009 · · EMILY ESFAHANI SMITH · |
Before the Islamic Revolution dimmed the Iranian literary imagination in 1979, and before an expanding Islam swept Iran into its Arab empire in the seventh century, there existed the rich and colorful Iran recounted in Ferdowsi's "Shahnameh," or the Book of Kings. Nearly four centuries after the Arab conquest, the "Shahnameh" tells the story of pre-Islamic Iran -- when Persian civilization was at its zenith. The epic proceeds through the reign of many monarchs, chronicling the at times legendary, at times mythological, and at times quasihistorical stories of each reign. Then, with the Arab conquest, the chronicle comes to an end. This... |
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| Helix, Make Mine a Double | |
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| Genes show Welsh are the true Britons |
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· 07/10/2002 8:43:22 AM PDT · · Posted by Korth · · 30 replies · 464+ views · · Telegraph.co.uk · · 01/07/2002 · · Unknown · |
Scientists say they have discovered big genetic differences between the English and Welsh, reinforcing the idea that the "true" Britons were pushed to the fringes by a large-scale Anglo-Saxon invasion. Researchers at University College London found the genes of a sample of English men were almost identical to those of people in an area of the Netherlands where the Anglo-Saxons are thought to have originated. But there were clear differences between the genetic make-up of English and Welsh subjects studied. The researchers concluded that the most likely explanation for this was a large-scale Anglo-Saxon invasion, which wiped out most of... |
| DNA confirms coastal trek to Australia |
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· 07/29/2009 8:11:52 AM PDT · · Posted by BGHater · · 4 replies · 221+ views · · ABC · · 24 July 2009 · · Nicky Phillips · |
DNA evidence linking Indian tribes to Australian Aboriginal people supports the theory humans arrived in Australia from Africa via a southern coastal route through India, say researchers.The research, lead by Dr Raghavendra Rao from the Anthropological Survey of India, is published in the current edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology.One theory is that modern humans arrived in Australia via an inland route through central Asia but Rao says most scientists believe modern humans arrived via the coast of South Asia.But he says there has never been any evidence to confirm a stop-off in India until now.Rao and colleagues sequenced the mitochondrial... |
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| Australia & the Pacific | |
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| Taiwan digs up its oldest civilization |
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· 07/27/2009 9:02:05 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 7 replies · 161+ views · · Reuters · · Friday, July 24, 2009 · · Ralph Jennings, editing by David Fox · |
Researchers in Taiwan have discovered what the believe is the island's oldest civilization, dating back about 20,000 years and belonging to a pygmy-like people that came from China, Southeast Asia or beyond, the team leader said on Friday. Taiwan's government-run Academia Sinica, which found more than 200 stone tools at the Ba Hsien Cave excavation site on the island's east coast, will return next year to seek clues on who was living there, leader Tsang Chen-hua said. The civilization was probably a dark-skinned people similar to Negritos, a term that covers several ethnic groups of short stature in isolated parts... |
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| Precolumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis | |
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| Ancient humans left evidence from the party that ended 4,000 years ago |
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· 07/26/2009 7:14:53 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 17 replies · 50+ views · · University of Missouri-Columbia, via Eurekalert · · Monday, July 21, 2009 · · Kelsey Jackson · |
The party was over more than 4,000 years ago, but the remnants still remain in the gourds and squashes that served as dishware. For the first time, University of Missouri researchers have studied the residues from gourds and squash artifacts that date back to 2200 B.C. and recovered starch grains from manioc, potato, chili pepper, arrowroot and algarrobo. The starches provide clues about the foods consumed at feasts and document the earliest evidence of the consumption of algarrobo and arrowroot in Peru... In the study, researchers recovered starch grains from squash and gourd artifacts by a method that currently is... |
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| Climate | |
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| When Did Humans Return After Last Ice Age? (UK) |
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· 07/27/2009 12:18:42 PM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 16 replies · 418+ views · · ScienceDaily · · July 27, 2009 · · Unknown · |
The Cheddar Gorge in Somerset was one of the first sites to be inhabited by humans when they returned to Britain near the end of the last Ice Age. According to new radio carbon dating by Oxford University researchers, outlined in the latest issue of Quaternary Science Review, humans were living in Gough's Cave 14,700 years ago. |
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| Catastrophism & Astronomy | |
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| The Earth-Moon system during the Late Heavy Bombardment period |
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· 07/24/2009 5:03:03 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 23 replies · 313+ views · · arXiv · · Jul 23, 2009 · · un · |
The Late Heavy Bombardment (LHB) period is the narrow time interval between 3.8 and 3.9 Gyr ago, where the bulk of the craters we see on the Moon formed. Even more craters formed on the Earth. During a field expedition to the 3.8 Gyr old Isua greenstone belt in Greenland, we sampled three types of metasedimentary rocks, that contain direct traces of the LHB impactors by a seven times enrichment (150 ppt) in iridium compared to present day ocean crust (20 ppt). We show that this enrichment is in agreement with the lunar cratering rate, providing the impactors were comets,... |
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| Permian-Triassic | |
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| Weather Of Mass Destruction |
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· 09/03/2003 5:58:25 PM PDT · · Posted by Mike Darancette · · 14 replies · 271+ views Australian · · 28 August 2003 · · Australian · |
As It Happened: The Day the Earth Nearly Died 8pm, SBS (2.30am, Perth) THINK of the wonderful profusion of life on Earth today. Then imagine 95 per cent of it dying in a terrible cataclysm. As this program from the BBC's Horizon series tells us, it's not a fantasy, it happened 250 million years ago, bringing the Permian period, with its myriad strange life-forms, crashing to an end and sending evolution into an abrupt reverse. The Permian mass extinction dwarfed the demise of the dinosaurs, caused by an asteroid strike 65 million years ago, when 60 per cent of species... |
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| Holocene | |
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| Carolina bays gouged into the ground at a magnetic reversal |
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· 07/29/2009 8:28:13 PM PDT · · Posted by Fred Nerks · · 60 replies · 1,162+ views · · Magnetic Reversals · · 28 Jul 09 · · Robert W Felix · |
Is it just a coincidence that more than two million huge holes were gouged into the ground - all at the same time - about 12,000 years ago at a magnetic reversal? Usually not more than 20 feet deep - which means that they were probably not formed by meteoric impacts - the holes range in size from one acre to several thousand acres, and measure up seven miles across. Scientists estimate that there could be more than two million Carolina bays (sometimes under different names) spread across the United States from Florida to New Jersey to Texas. I sure... |
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| Paleontology | |
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| Can Hydrocarbons Form in the Mantle Without Organic Matter? |
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· 07/28/2009 9:20:47 PM PDT · · Posted by JmyBryan · · 33 replies · 622+ views · · Geology.com · · July 2009 · · Carnegie Institution · |
Could Deep Source Hydrocarbons Migrate Up Into Oil and Gas Reservoirs? The oil and gas that fuels our homes and cars started out as living organisms that died, were compressed, and heated under heavy layers of sediments in the Earth's crust. Scientists have debated for years whether some of these hydrocarbons could also have been created deeper in the Earth and formed without organic matter. Now for the first time, scientists have found that ethane and heavier hydrocarbons can be synthesized under the pressure-temperature conditions of the upper mantle -- the layer of Earth under the crust and on top of... |
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| Oh So Mysteriouso | |
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| Reexamination of T. rex verifies disputed biochemical remains |
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· 07/29/2009 4:04:57 PM PDT · · Posted by Mmogamer · · 12 replies · 313+ views · · American Chemical Society · · 29-Jul-2009 · · Michael Woods · |
Reexamination of T. rex verifies disputed biochemical remains A new analysis of the remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex (T. rex) that roamed Earth 68 million years ago has confirmed traces of protein from blood and bone, tendons, or cartilage. The findings, scheduled for publication in the Sept. 4 issue of ACS' monthly Journal of Proteome Research, is the latest addition to an ongoing controversy over which biochemical remnants can be detected in the dino. |
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| Prehistory and Origins | |
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| When and wear: the prehistory of clothing |
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· 07/27/2009 9:30:16 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 23 replies · 379+ views · · ScienceAlert (Australia) · · Monday, September 1, 2008 · · Simon Couper · |
The doctoral researcher from the School of Archaeology and Anthropology at ANU is simply making it clear that he's not concerned with the vicissitudes of fashion... Instead, he's fascinated by how humans came to develop clothing, and how that innovation might have in turn given our species an evolutionary edge over other hominids... He has credentials in medicine, psychology, prehistoric archaeology, and is completing a thesis in biological anthropology. This complicated curriculum vitae makes sense in light of Gilligan's project: his drive to understand the physiological, psychological and prehistoric aspects of clothing... "Modern humans have been around 200,000 years, and... |
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| Asia | |
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| Ancient Silla armor comes to light[Korea] |
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· 07/28/2009 8:19:08 AM PDT · · Posted by BGHater · · 7 replies · 448+ views · · JoongAng Daily · · 22 July 2009 · · Lee Kyong-hee · |
The recent discovery of the armor of Silla Dynasty cavalrymen has provided proof of the existence of these mythical men. GYEONGJU - The warrior's body and bones are long gone, decayed into the soil. But the armor that once protected him from enemy swords and arrows has survived the passage of time and has been revealed for the first time in 1,600 years. The armor of the heavily protected cavalrymen of the Silla Dynasty (57 B.C. - A.D. 935) - proof of which has previously existed only in paintings - was discovered in the ancient tombs of the Jjoksaem District... |
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| Anatolia | |
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| Dock 1 made from ancient ruins? [ Mausoleum of Halicarnassus? one of the 7 Wonders ] |
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· 07/27/2009 8:45:10 AM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 17 replies · 222+ views · · Times of Malta · · Sunday, 26th July 2009 · · Cynthia Busuttil · |
The murky water in Dock No.1 in Cospicua has witnessed much history over the years. Nobody ever imagined, however, that lying underneath could be the remains of an ancient Turkish wonder - the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. No one, that is, but oncologist Stephen Brincat, who came across this precious piece of information while reading an article about the excavations of the site by the British in the 19th century in the Turkish magazine Cornucopia. "There was one sentence which said that the wall of the mausoleum was dismantled to build a dock in Malta," Dr Brincat said. Blocks of marble... |
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| The Phoenicians | |
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| Berlusconi escort tape may spark antiquities probe [ Phoenician tombs? ] |
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· 07/28/2009 1:51:59 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 13 replies · 318+ views · · Myanmar Star · · Friday July 24, 2009 · · Philip Pullella · |
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's private conversations with an escort, which have riveted Italians all week, may wind up getting him into trouble with Italy's archaeological authorities... In one of the transcripts of his purported conversations with Patrizia D'Addario posted on an Italian website, Berlusconi boasts to her about his sprawling villa in Sardinia -- complete with an ice cream parlour and artificial lakes. "Here we found 30 Phoenician tombs from (around) 300 BC," the voice is heard to say. |
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| Faith and Philosophy | |
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| Can a Single Neuron Tell Halle Berry From Grandma Esther? [ Grandmother Cells? ] |
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· 07/28/2009 1:39:51 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 9 replies · 400+ views · · Discover magazine, June 2009 issue · · online May 15, 2009 · · Carl Zimmer · |
Four decades ago, an MIT neuroscientist named Jerry Lettvin had a sudden inspiration about how our brains make sense of the world. What if each of us had a special set of neurons in our head whose only job was to recognize a particular person, place, or thing? It was a strange idea, but given what Lettvin knew about the brain, it was plausible. To describe his idea to his students, he made up a story [pdf]. The story was about Alexander Portnoy, the protagonist of Philip Roth's novel Portnoy's Complaint, which had just been published. The novel is a... |
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| Middle Ages and Renaissance | |
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| Italian archaeologists find lost Roman city of Altinum near Venice |
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· 07/30/2009 8:37:00 PM PDT · · Posted by bruinbirdman · · 17 replies · 756+ views · · The Times · · 7/31/2009 · · Hannah Devlin · |
The bustling harbour of Altinum near Venice was one of the richest cities of the Roman empire. But terrified by the impending invasion of the fearsome Germanic Emperor Attila the Hun, its inhabitants cut their losses and fled in AD452, leaving behind a ghost town of theatres, temples and basilicas. Altinum was never reoccupied and gradually sunk into the ground. The city lived on in Venetian folk tales and historical artefacts but its exact position, size and wealth gradually faded into obscurity. Now, using aerial photography of the region, Italian archaeologists have not only located the city, but have produced... |
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| Pages | |
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| Google, Sony Now Offer 1 Million Free Books |
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· 07/31/2009 9:41:46 AM PDT · · Posted by Ernest_at_the_Beach · · 8 replies · 372+ views · · Daily Tech · · July 30, 2009 3:54 AM · · Michael Barkoviak · |
Sony's e-book store now has more than 1 million titles Sony today announced that there are more than 1 million public domain books available through the Google Books project, as Sony continues to battle with Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. "We are committed to ensuring our customers have the freedom to discover and read content from the widest possible range of sources," Sony eBook Store Director Chris Smythe said in a statement. "We're proud to offer access to the broadest range of eBooks today -- from hot new releases, to New York Times Best Sellers, to classics and hard to... |
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| Rome and Italy | |
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| Ancient warrior's skeleton found near Rome |
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· 07/31/2009 10:41:07 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 9 replies · 503+ views · · Associated Press · · Jul 31, 2009 · · Marta Falconi · |
ROME - Archaeologists have found the skeleton of a warrior from up to 5,000 years ago floating in a tomb filled with sea water on a beach near Rome, Italy's art squad said Friday. The bones -- believed to date from the 3rd millennium B.C. -- were discovered in May as art hunters were carrying out routine checks of the region's archaeological areas, Carabinieri art squad official Raffaele Mancino said. |
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| The Framers | |
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| the 24th Amendment |
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· 07/26/2009 6:14:03 PM PDT · · Posted by SunkenCiv · · 6 replies · 14+ views · · Constitution of the United States, via FindLaw et al · · proposed August 27, 1962 · · ratified January 23, 1964 · · The Framers et al · |
Section 1. : The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax. Section 2. : The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. |
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| Longer Perspectives | |
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| Mediterranean Reflections on What Went Wrong [Victor Davis Hanson] |
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· 07/30/2009 7:45:43 AM PDT · · Posted by Tolik · · 29 replies · 908+ views · · pajamasmedia.com · · July 30, 2009 · · Victor Davis Hanson · |
I have been traveling as a lecturer on a Hillsdale College Byzantium Cruise (from Venice to Athens, with several stops in the Adriatic, Mediterranean, and Aegean) for the last few days, and here are some eccentric reflections on civilizations of the past. I spent yesterday in Venice -- hot, humid, and crowded, as I had never quite seen it before. So much for the global recession that has supposedly curtailed world tourism.Venice was not a classical city, and one can see why. It was malarial, without natural harbors or any readily identifiable deep ports or surrounding cliffs. It is instead a conglomeration of... |
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| World War Eleven | |
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| New book says wrong clothing, not winter led to Hitler's 1941 defeat in Russia |
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· 07/26/2009 5:55:44 AM PDT · · Posted by decimon · · 81 replies · 76+ views · · ANI · · Jul 26, 2009 · · Unknown · |
British historian Andrew Roberts has claimed in a new book -- The Storm of War -- that wrong clothing and not ghastly wintry conditions led to Germany's defeat in Russia in 1941. In an extract from his new book, Roberts claims that Hitler's troops were fatally ill equipped for the 1941 invasion of Russia. He also blames dictator Adolf Hitler for that defeat, saying the Nazi leader failed to take care of his troops' needs and was more proud of his hardiness in the cold, boasting how "having to change into long trousers was always a misery to me." Prior... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Miscellany | |
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| 'Stalin victims' found in Belarus |
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· 07/26/2009 6:25:11 PM PDT · · Posted by BlackVeil · · 12 replies · 28+ views · · BBC · · 24 July 2009 · · anon · |
The remains of more than 20 suspected victims of Joseph Stalin's secret police have been found in the basement of a church in northern Belarus. Soviet bullets were found with the remains at Glubokoye, a village which had been in Poland but fell into Soviet hands in 1939. A youth group discovered the remains earlier this week, reports say. Local historians said the victims had most probably been shot by the NKVD secret police between 1939 and 1941. "I think we can all but rule out any suggestion that these people were shot by the Germans during the occupation," historian... |
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| Thoroughly Modern Muzzie | |
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| Obama 'like Romans who destroyed Jewish Temples' (Jews read Lamentations at U.S. consulate) |
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· 07/29/2009 3:22:50 PM PDT · · Posted by Nachum · · 14 replies · 303+ views · · WND · · 7/29/09 · · Aaron Klien · |
JERUSALEM -- Marking the saddest day on the Jewish calendar, about a thousand Jewish protesters today read the biblical book of Lamentations in front of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem to protest against the Obama administration's demand to freeze Jewish construction in eastern sections of the city. Tonight marks the fasting day of Tisha B'Av, or the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. It commemorates a series of tragedies that befell the Jewish people all on the same day, most significantly the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, which occurred about 656 years apart on... |
| end of digest #263 20090801 | |
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