Gods, Graves, Glyphs
Weekly Digest #61
Saturday, September 17, 2005
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Prehistory and Origins
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Neanderthal Flute
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Posted by SunkenCiv
On General/Chat 09/11/2005 9:12:33 PM PDT · 19 replies · 280+ views
Bob Fink | updated March 1998 | Bob Fink
That we would have a scale virtually unique to that flute (possibly matching some other obscure scale in some parts of the world, but not matching any known historically widespread scale in use). The problem with this non-conclusion is that since the hole-spacings discussed in this essay have only a one-in-hundreds chance to match a pattern of 4 notes in the diatonic major/minor scales, then this conclusion would require accepting a remarkable against-the-odds coincidence of spacings.
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Small Brain Did Not Stop Hobbit Having Big Ideas
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 09/16/2005 7:05:03 PM PDT · 18 replies · 369+ views
The Telegraph (UK) | 9-8-2005 | Nic Fleming/Roger highfield
Small brain did not stop Hobbit having big ideas By Nic Fleming and Roger Highfield in Dublin (Filed: 08/09/2005) A fossil of a diminutive human nicknamed "the Hobbit" does indeed represent a previously unrecognised species of early Man, according to a new technique that suggests it was a cultured little fellow. Sceptics had argued that the Hobbit, discovered in Indonesia and first announced last year, could have been an individual who suffered from microcephalya, a disorder that limits brain growth. The fossils' discoverers had suggested that the Hobbit was either a pygmy form of a known species or a previously...
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Asia
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S. Korea: A Flute Made out of Clay (a teacher makes a blue china flute)
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Posted by TigerLikesRooster
On General/Chat 07/23/2005 8:02:33 PM PDT · 8 replies · 121+ views
Yonhap News (via Naver.com) | 07/23/05
/begin my translation A Flute Made out of Clay [Yonhap News 2005-07-23 10:00] Yu Yeon-shil, who pioneered a ceramic flute in S. Korea, is giving a demonstration. It was made with a technique used to make blue china. She is a music teacher specialized in violin instruction at West Hae-nam Elementary School in S. Cholla Province. Source: Hae-man Newspaper [Hae-nam, Yonhap news] /end my translation
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Catastrophism and Astronomy
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Overdue Supervolcanoes 'May Erupt Soon'
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Posted by HAL9000
On News/Activism 01/30/2005 8:41:42 PM PST · 144 replies · 3,256+ views
Sky News | January 30, 2005
SUPERVOLCANOES WARNING Slumbering supervolcanoes powerful enough to wipe out much of the planet may awaken much sooner than it had previously been thought. Experts believed it would take hundreds of thousands of years for reservoirs of molton rock, or magma, beneath a supervolcano to build for an eruption. But a new study indicates the time between super-eruptions can actually be tens of thousands of years - and many are already long overdue. A blast from a supervolcano would be strong enough cause mass extinction and change the world's climate. The findings, published in the Journal of Petrology, are bad...
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Disaster compared to scene from Bible (Planet rotation said affected by 9.0 quake)
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Posted by NYer
On News/Activism 12/27/2004 6:08:33 AM PST · 256 replies · 8,140+ views
WorldNetDaily | December 26, 2004
The largest earthquake in the past 40 years and the resulting deaths of thousands from 33-foot tidal waves are being compared by an American reporter to descriptions of disaster from Holy Scripture. "The speed with which it all happened seemed like a scene from the Bible – a natural phenomenon unlike anything I had experienced before," said Washington Post reporter Michael Dobbs, who was swimming off a Sri Lankan island when the disaster struck this morning. "As the waters rose at an incredible rate, I half expected to catch sight of Noah's Ark. Instead of the Ark, I grabbed hold...
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Scientists find Earth's center is outspinning the surface
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Posted by Coleus
On General/Chat 09/11/2005 1:45:14 PM PDT · 18 replies · 217+ views
Newark Star Ledger | 08.26.05
The giant iron ball at the center of the Earth appears to be spinning a bit faster than the rest of the planet. The solid 1,500-mile-wide inner core, which is surrounded by fluid, rotates about one-quarter to one-half degree more than the rest of the world every year, scientists from Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign report in today's issue of the journal Science. The spin of the Earth's core is an important part of the engine that creates the planet's magnetic field, and researcher Xiaodong Song said he believes magnetic interaction is responsible...
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Climate
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New plant finds in andes foretell of ancient climate change (It's a natural cycle, people!)
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Posted by DaveLoneRanger
On News/Activism 09/15/2005 7:44:16 AM PDT · 82 replies · 1,402+ views
EurekAlert | September 14, 2005 | Staff
COLUMBUS , Ohio – For the third time in as many years, glaciologist Lonnie Thompson has returned from an Andean ice field in Peru with samples from beds of ancient plants exposed for the first time in perhaps as much as 6,500 years. In 2002, he first stumbled across some non-fossilized plants exposed by the steadily retreating Quelccaya ice cap. Carbon dating showed that plant material was at least 5,000 years old. Then in 2004, Thompson found additional plant beds revealed by the continued retreat of the melting ice and when tested, these proved to be carbon-free, suggesting that they...
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PreColumbian, Clovis, and PreClovis
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Geology Pictures of the Two Weeks, September 4-17, 2005: Images of the Chichen Itza Cenote
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Posted by cogitator
On General/Chat 09/14/2005 7:51:52 AM PDT · 10 replies · 210+ views
Inspiration: the "close approach" of the Japanese satellite Hayabusa to the asteroid Itokawa. Hayabusa is actually going to attempt to gather material from Itokawa using an impactor, and it will deploy a micro-robot that hops around the asteroid. Cool mission -- the samples are supposed to land in the Australian outback in 2007. Hayabusa Hovers Near Asteroid Itokawa So why the images? Well, the cenote was caused by the K/T impactor, and that's what I thought of today. According to a long-remembered National Geographic article, the Chichen Itza cenote was supposedly the site of human sacrifices; after the sacrifice was...
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Research Team Finds New Evidence Of Amazonian Civilization
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 09/16/2005 7:32:10 PM PDT · 13 replies · 380+ views
Asia News/Yahoo | 9-14-2005
Research team finds new evidence of Amazonian civilization (Kyodo) A joint Japanese-Bolivian research team has completed the first stage of a three-year investigation that aims to shed light on a little-known high culture that existed in the present-day Bolivian Amazon. The investigation, named "Project Mojos," is headed by Katsuyoshi Sanematsu, a professor of anthropology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo. In an interview Wednesday, Sanematsu, 56, told Kyodo News that the team, composed of four Japanese researchers and four Bolivian researchers, succeeded in finding hundreds of archaeological artifacts during a month long excavation that ended earlier this month. "It is very...
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Science Trumps Ritual in Mystery Skeleton Row [Kennewick Man]
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Posted by syriacus
On News/Activism 02/05/2004 5:52:19 AM PST · 50 replies · 213+ views
Reuters--UK | Thu 5 February, 2004 | Adam Tanner
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Denying a request by American Indian tribes who sought an immediate burial, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Wednesday that scientists should be allowed to continue testing on a 9,000-year-old skeleton. "It's terrific," said Robson Bonnichsen director of Texas A&M University's Center for the Study of the First Americans and a plaintiff in the case. "The court has upheld the principle for scientific study of very early human remains." The legal battle pitting Bonnichsen and seven other scientists against the U.S. government and Indian tribes dates back to 1996, after two teenagers discovered a skeleton near...
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Underwater Archaeology
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Probe Into Cuba's Possible 'Sunken City' Advances
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Posted by Lessismore
On General/Chat 03/29/2002 4:55:12 PM PST · 23 replies · 242+ views
Yahoo Science News | Fri Mar 29, 6:20 PM ET | By Andrew Cawthorne
HAVANA (Reuters) - Scientific investigators said on Friday they hope to better determine later this year if an unusual rock formation deep off Cuba's coast could be a sunken city from a previously unknown ancient civilization. "These are extremely peculiar structures ... They have captured all our imagination," Cuban geologist Manuel Iturralde said at a conference after a week on a boat over the site. "If I had to explain this geologically, I would have a hard time," he told reporters later, saying examination of rock samples due to be collected in a few months should shed further light on...
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Ancient Greece
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Alexander the Great and his staff meetings
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Posted by EveningStar
On General/Chat 09/06/2005 11:24:49 AM PDT · 39 replies · 1,679+ views
email | unknown
The armies of Alexander the Great were greatly feared in their day, but there was one problem that they had that almost defeated them. Alexander could not get his people to staff meetings on time. He always held the meetings at 6.00 p.m. each day after the day's battle was done, but frequently his generals either forgot or let the time slip up on them and missed the 6.00 p.m. staff meeting. This angered Alexander very much, to say the least! So he called in his research team and set up a project to develop a method of determining the...
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Elam, Persia, Parthia, Iran
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Rewriting Victors' View of Persian History
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Posted by neverdem
On News/Activism 09/13/2005 11:55:04 PM PDT · 36 replies · 633+ views
NY Times | September 14, 2005 | ALAN RIDING
LONDON, Sept. 11 - An early reference to Alexander of Macedon is the first hint of where the British Museum is heading in its new exhibition, "Forgotten Empire: The World of Ancient Persia." After all, to Persians then and Iranians now, there was nothing great about the Alexander who crushed the largest empire the world had yet known. Indeed, his burning of Persepolis in 331 B.C. was considered an act of vandalism. But the show, which runs through Jan. 8, goes further, challenging the version of history that ancient Greece, starting with Herodotus, bequeathed to the West. Put simply, in...
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Let's Have Jerusalem
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India's Lost Tribe Recognized As Jews After 2,700 Years
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Posted by blam
On News/Activism 09/16/2005 5:56:52 PM PDT · 23 replies · 872+ views
The Telegraph (UK) | 9-17-2005 | Peter Foster
India's lost tribe recognised as Jews after 2,700 years By Peter Foster in Aizawl (Filed: 17/09/2005) With a cry of "Mazeltov" and a Rabbi's congratulatory handshake, hundreds of tribal people from India's north-east were formally converted to Judaism this week after being recognised as descendants of the 10 Lost Tribes exiled from Israel 2,700 years ago. A rabbinical court, dispatched with the blessing of Israel's Chief Rabbi, travelled 3,500 miles to Mizoram on India's border with Burma to perform the conversions using a Mikvah - ritual bath - built specially for the purpose. There were emotional scenes as the Oriental-looking...
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Hitchens: Recent writers on Islam need to be more stringent in their criticism
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Posted by risk
On News/Activism 04/15/2003 1:15:02 AM PDT · 30 replies · 248+ views
theatlantic.com | April 2003 | Christopher Hitchens
The Atlantic Monthly | April 2003 Books & Critics Books Holy Writ Recent writers on Islam need to be more stringent in their criticism. Stephen Schwartz is an exception by Christopher Hitchens ..... Books discussed in this essay The Satanic Versesby Salman Rushdie Viking Platformby Michel Houellebecq forthcoming from Knopf The Rage and the Prideby Oriana Fallaci Rizzoli Among the Believers and Beyond Beliefby V.S. Naipaul Knopf Random House Why I Am Not A Muslimby Ibn Warraq Prometheus Books The Two Faces Of Islamby Stephen Schwartz Doubleday or a great many people, myself included, the engagement...
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Mohammed was a Thug & Fraud - (must read! - one of the best, short, accurate biographies EVER!)
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Posted by CHARLITE
On Bloggers & Personal 07/25/2005 8:07:19 PM PDT · 124 replies · 2,784+ views
ALAN BURKHART.COM | JULY 25, 2005 | ALAN BURKHART
I recently set out to learn more about Islam. I had no agenda at the time except to broaden my knowledge on the subject. What I have learned sickened me. I had previously been accepting of the notion that Islam was a peaceful religion and that the Muslim terrorists who inflict so much pain and death around the world represented a fringe element outside of mainstream Islam. I was wrong. The Islamic deity, Allah, is a false god. While the term "Allah" does indeed carry the same meaning as "God," Mohammed's Allah is nothing more than a construct of a...
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The Myth of Mecca
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Posted by francisandbeans
On News/Activism 09/27/2001 6:56:26 AM PDT · 145 replies · 238+ views
PUSA.com | 9/27 | Dr. Jack Wheeler
The most sacred spot on earth to all members of the Islamic religion is the Holy City of Mecca, revered as the birthplace of Mohammed. It is one of the five basic requirements incumbent upon all Moslems that they make (if their health will allow it) a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lives (the other four: recognize that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammed is Allah's prophet, ritually pray five times a day, and give alms to the poor). The founding events of Islam are Mohammed's activities in Mecca and Medina, a city north of Mecca. The ...
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Statement by Ibn Warraq on the WTC Atrocity (Author of "Why I am not a Muslim")
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Posted by truthandlife
On News/Activism 10/11/2001 4:23:05 PM PDT · 13 replies · 230+ views
Secularislam.org | 10/11/01 | Ibn Warraq
Given the stupefying enormity of the acts of barbarism of 11 September, moral outrage is appropriate and justified, as are demands for punishment. But a civilized society cannot permit blind attacks on all those perceived as “Muslims” or Arabs. Not all Muslims or all Arabs are terrorists. Nor are they implicated in the horrendous events of Tuesday. Police protection for individual Muslims, mosques and other institutions must be increased. However, to pretend that Islam has nothing to do with Terrorist Tuesday is to wilfully ignore the obvious and to forever misinterpret events. Without Islam the long-term strategy and individual acts ...
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Thoroughly Modern Miscellany
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How to Give An 1865 Dinner. [A stroll down memory lane]
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Posted by yankeedame
On General/Chat 09/13/2005 10:24:14 AM PDT · 18 replies · 217+ views
Housemouse
1860s Victorian HouseDINING ROOM."The dinner-table is the only placewhere men are not boredduring the first hour." How to Give An 1865 Dinner. A dinner, no matter how recherché, how sumptuous, will never go off well if the wine is bad, the guests not suited to each other, the faces dull, and the dinner eaten hastily. But some impatient reader will exclaim, How can we manage to unite all these conditions, which enhance, in a supreme degree, the pleasures of the dinner-table?I will reply to this question, so listen attentively, gentle reader. Let the number of your guests never exceed...
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end of digest #61 20050917
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