Free Republic

Finally, a reporter reporting something important. I'm surprised he still knew what to do.

The residue of ancient urine can reveal the presence of early stationary herder-farmer communities. A 10,000-year-old archaeological site in central Turkey is helping scientists unlock the region's pee-historic past. That's right: the salty residue of ancient urine can reveal how and when humans went from hunter-gatherers to herder-farmers who kept and raised animals in their settlements... In the dry climate of central Turkey, the sodium, chloride and nitrates from all that animal excretion would be trapped in the layers of earth onto which they were originally peed. Excavating those salts, layer by layer, should provide a timeline of animal populations...

CHLORIDE, Ariz. - Two girls riding an all-terrain vehicle fell into a mine shaft, killing one while the other remained trapped overnight, authorities said Sunday. The 10-year-old girl was pulled out in the morning with injuries. A rope team descended into the vertical shaft, where the 13-year-old girl was found dead, sheriff's spokeswoman Sandy Edwards said. Efforts were under way to remove her body. Edwards did not know how far down the girls had fallen and did not know whether the girls' relationship. The pair went missing about 7 p.m. Saturday and never came back. Officials discovered they were the...

PERSONAL HEALTH Evolution is an excellent teacher when it comes to figuring out what and how much people should eat. For example, primates (including those with two legs and big brains) evolved on foods rich in potassium and very low in sodium. Early humans evolved to conserve sodium, which was hard to obtain, and to excrete excess potassium, abundant in many fruits and vegetables. But Western-style diets these days are the reverse of what those early humans consumed, rich in processed foods, loaded with sodium and relatively poor in potassium. Consequently, according to a report released this year by the...