Free Republic

Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force Roger A. Towberman unveiled the insignia for the new service’s enlisted ranks Sept. 20, with nods to its Air Force roots and heavy use of deltas and hexagons. The base design for Specialist 1s features a dark blue hexagon, with a white delta in the middle. “The six-sided border surrounding the insignia represents the USSF as the sixth branch of the U.S. Armed Forces,” the service said in a statement. The hexagon has also appeared in the emblems for the service’s three garrisons. For grades E-2, E-3, and E-4, the insignia adds horizontal...

Nine hundred kilometers off the east coast of Madagascar lies the tiny island paradise of Mauritius. The waters are pristine, the beaches bright white, and the average temperature hovers between 22°C and 28°C (72°F to 82°F) year-round. But conditions there may not have always been so idyllic. A new study suggests that about 4000 years ago, a prolonged drought on the island left many of the native species, such as dodo birds and giant tortoises, dead in a soup of poisonous algae and their own feces. The die-off happened in an area known as Mare aux Songes, which once held...

Around 5,000 years ago, the island of Madagascar would have resembled a Sci-Fi novel. Strange, prickly forests, gorilla-sized lemurs, pygmy hippopotamuses, horned crocodile and elephant birds whose eggs were 180 times the size of what you'd find in your fridge today, all called the African island home -- that was until the humans arrived.

Studies prove people of Madagascar came from Borneo and Africa mongabay.com July 8, 2005 Studies released earlier this year found the people of Madagascar have origins in Borneo and East Africa. Half of the genetic lineages of human inhabitants of Madagascar come from 4500 miles away in Borneo, while the other half derive from East Africa, according to a study published in May by a UK team. The island of Madagascar, the largest in the Indian Ocean, lies some 250 miles (400 km) from Africa and 4000 miles (6400 km) from Indonesia. Its isolation means that most of its mammals,...

Madagascar was first settled and founded by approximately 30 women, mostly of Indonesian descent, who may have sailed off course in a wayward vessel 1200 years ago. The discovery negates a prior theory that a large, planned settlement process took place on the island of Madagascar, located off the east coast of Africa. Traditionally it was thought to have been settled by Indonesian traders moving along the coasts of the Indian Ocean. Most native Madagascar people today, called Malagasy, can trace their ancestry back to the founding 30 mothers, according to an extensive new DNA study published in the latest...

At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high. On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface. The explanation is obvious to...

Scientists are using the site to help determine the frequency of catastrophes like the event of 26 December 2004. This is being done by dating the cave's tsunami-borne sediments, which are easy to see between layers of bat droppings. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote Because people thought they had no history of such things, they thought it was impossible” End Quote Prof Kerry Sieh Director, Earth Observatory of Singapore "The tsunami sands just jump right out at you because they're separated by guano layers. There's no confusing the stratigraphy (layering)," explains Dr Jessica Pilarczyk. "It makes for...

A cave on the northwestern coast of Sumatra holds a remarkable record of big tsunamis in the Indian Ocean. The limestone opening, close to Banda Aceh, retains the sandy deposits washed ashore by huge, earthquake-induced waves over thousands of years. Scientists are using the site to help determine the frequency of catastrophes like the event of 26 December 2004.

Mega-tsunami theory disputed February 03, 2008 SUPPOSED evidence Australia has been subject to prehistoric tsunamis up to 20m in height over the past 10,000 years could just be the result of Aboriginal occupation, a major conference is set to hear tomorrow. Archaeologists from the Australian National University say the theory about the mega-tsunamis, which has influenced the development of emergency service plans in Western Australia, is not supported by evidence. In 2003 Australian geological researchers suggested prehistoric tsunamis over the past 10,000 years were much larger than those recorded since European settlement, including findings of surges up to 20m in...

Did a Comet Cause the Great Flood?The universal human myth may be the first example of disaster reporting. by Scott Carney11-15-2007 The Fenambosy chevrons at the tip of Madagascar. Image courtesy of Dallas Abbott The serpent’s tails coil together menacingly. A horn juts sharply from its head. The creature looks as if it might be swimming through a sea of stars. Or is it making its way up a sheer basalt cliff? For Bruce Masse, an environmental archaeologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, there is no confusion as he looks at this ancient petroglyph, scratched into a rock by a...

New Kerala A new research has revealed that our ancestors from 5,000 years ago painted their homes to brighten up their places too. They used red, yellow and orange pigments from ground-up minerals and bound it with animal fat and eggs to make their paint, the new study from a Stone Age settlement on the island of Orkney revealed. Several stones used to form the buildings painted and decorated by the locals in about 3,000 BC, most probably to to enhance important buildings and may have been found in entranceways or areas of the building, which had particular significance. "We...

At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high. On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface. The explanation is obvious to...

Dallas Abbott The Fenambosy chevron, one of four near the tip of Madagascar, is 600 feet high and three miles from the ocean. At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high. On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. snip... The explanation is obvious to some scientists. A large asteroid or comet,...