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Platypus eating a worm. ============================================================== The first complete map of a platypus genome has just been released, and it's every bit as strange as you'd expect from a creature with 10 sex chromosomes, a pair of venomous spurs, a coat of fluorescent fur, and skin that 'sweats' milk. The duck-billed platypus is truly one of the oddest creatures on Earth. Along with the spiky echidna, these two Australian animals belong to a highly-specialised group of mammals, known as monotremes, which both lay eggs but also nurse their young with milk. The genes of both are relatively primitive and unchanged, revealing...

In 1479, the kingdoms of Castile and Aragón were united under the joint rule of the ‘Christian Monarchs’, Ferdinand of Aragón and Isabella of Castile. The inter-Christian rivalry that had crippled the Christian kingdoms’ war against the Muslims for the last hundred years was, supposedly, over. A shrinking economy within the Emirate of Granada and the erosion of their territory in the first half of the 15th century had fostered increased xenophobia amongst the Muslim population and a consequent lack of tolerance towards the few Christians that remained or visited the Emirate. This provided the Christian Monarchs with a religious...

Archaeologists claim that they have identified the deadly dance floor where John the Baptist...was sentenced to death around A.D. 29. The Bible and the ancient writer Flavius Josephus (A.D. 37-100) both describe how King Herod Antipas, a son of King Herod, had John the Baptist executed. Josephus specified that the execution took place at Machaerus, a fort near the Dead Sea in modern-day Jordan. ...Herod Antipas was set to marry a woman named Herodias, both of whom had been divorced — something that John the Baptist objected to. At Herod Antipas' birthday party, Herodias' daughter, named Salome, performed a dance...

A seemingly dull marble slab, used for 10 years as a stepping stone in an English garden, is actually a rare ancient Roman engraving, a new analysis finds. The discovery surprised its owner, who learned that the 25-inch-long (63 centimeters) slab — a stone she had previously used as a stair while mounting her horse — dated to the second century A.D. and was worth about $20,400 (£15,000). However, no one knows how the marble masterpiece ended up in England. It was likely carved in Greece or Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), according to a statement from Woolley and Wallis, a...

The remains of what may be a 6000-year-old city immersed in deep waters off the west coast of Cuba was discovered by a team of Canadian and Cuban researchers. Offshore engineer Paulina Zelitsky and her husband, Paul Weinzweig and her son Ernesto Tapanes used sophisticated sonar and video videotape devices to find “some kind of megaliths you ‘d find on Stonehenge or Easter Island,” Weinzweig said in an interview.

The Greeks who represent the last vestiges of Christian Byzantium and the Roman Empire are heading towards their final extinction in Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey, with their numbers dwindling to a mere handful under his Islamist government. What is now Turkey only began to be colonised in by the Turkic peoples in earnest from around 1071, after their Seljuk ancestors had arrived from Central Asia and vanquished the Greek-speaking Christian ruler Romanos IV Diogenes’s forces at the Battle of Manzikert. The last vestiges of the Byzantine state where finally snuffed out with the brutal conquest of Constantinople, widely regarded as...

These are unique and rare stone axes from the Stone AgeA Saudi scientific team from the Heritage Authority discovered stone tools used by the inhabitants of Assyrian civilization in the Paleolithic period that date back to 2,00,000 years. The Heritage Authority said in a press statement that the discovered stone tools from the Shuaib Al-Adgham area, located east of the Al-Qassim region, are stone axes from the Middle Paleolithic period. These are unique and rare stone axes that were characterised by the high precision in manufacturing that these human groups used in their daily life. The abundance of stone tools...

Is it just me, or does everyone have a first recollection of hearing about Bigfoot? OK, yeah, it’s just me. Growing up in Santa Cruz, my parents were childbirth instructors. Every Wednesday, they would have pregnant couples over to coach them on the ins and outs (literally) of what to expect on the big day. We kids would be shuttled off to the neighbors for the duration of the class. Next door, we were allowed to watch all kinds of television that were not permitted in Casa de Otter: What’s Happening!, Good Times and even M*A*S*H. Amid this hit parade...

A fast-food eatery — or thermopolium — discovered at Pompeii has been completely excavated, helping to reveal some top dishes of the ancient Roman city. The site is about 18 miles southeast of Naples, Italy. Luigi Spina/Archaeological Park of Pompeii ================================================================== Ever wonder what a 2,000-year-old fast-food restaurant might look like? Well, new photos from researchers might give you an idea. Archaeologists said on Saturday they excavated a complete thermopolium — a Roman food counter — in the ancient city of Pompeii. Researchers are analyzing the findings to create a more complete picture of the daily life — and diet...

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss. Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived...

Archaeologists researching on an underwater diving project, stumbled over an ancient underwater temple claimed as Heracleion’s ‘Egyptian Atlantis’ and probably have found a destroyed ancient Greek temple and treasure-laden vessels which might have sunken into the sea due to floods and tsunami 1,200 years back.

What happened to the wood that made it that way in the beautiful petrified trees in the forests of Arizona? They believe that petrified wood is so old that in the prehistoric period it has emerged. But do you know how petrified wood was made? This guide will show you how. What is petrified wood and how is it formed? Fossil wood is considered to have grown when the material of the plant is buried by sediment. When the wood is buried deep in the muck, it is protected from decay caused by exposure to oxygen and organisms.

With a mane of yellow and brown fur down its back and long ‘needles’ growing from its shoulders, a peacock-like elaborate dinosaur has been identified. The neck spines of the creature are rare in the fossil record and made of keratin, which is the same protein that makes up parts of our hair, nails and skin. Dubbed Ubirajara jubatus, indigenous Indian for ‘Maned Lord of the Spear’ Experts led from the University of Portsmouth believe the flamboyant spines may have been used to impress prospective mates, and that the dinosaur may have indulged in ‘elaborate dancing’ to show them off.

Archaeologists have unearthed new sections of an Aztec tower of human skulls dating back to the 1400s beneath the center of Mexico City. The team has uncovered the facade and eastern side of the tower, as well as 119 human skulls of men, women and children, adding to hundreds previously found, the National Institute of Anthropology and History (Inah) announced on Friday. The tower, approximately five meters (16.4ft) in diameter, was first discovered in 2017, and the latest discoveries were made in ...

In the 1620s, King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden ordered the construction of a new warship to protect his citizens. The warship was named Vasa and its construction was hurried as the Swedes waged war in those years with the now-historic bi-confederation entity reigned by one monarch–the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Known as a termopolium, Latin for hot drinks counter, the shop was discovered in the archaeological park's Regio V site, which is not yet open the public, and unveiled on Saturday. Traces of nearly 2,000-year-old food were found in some of the deep terra cotta jars containing hot food which the shop keeper lowered into a counter with circular holes. Archaeologists also found a decorated bronze drinking bowl known as a patera, ceramic jars used for cooking stews and soups, wine flasks and amphora. Pompeii, 23 km (14 miles) southeast of Naples, was home to about 13,000 people...

Archaeologists in Florida recently confirmed that they discovered the bones of many young children buried under the last place that one might have thought to look: a wine store. However, there will be no police investigation. The Florida wine shop is in St. Augustine, the oldest city in America. And those bones? And those bones? They’re just about as old as the city is.

For Christmas Eve:Apollo 8's Christmas Eve Message

After 50 years of submerged at the bottom of a reservoir, a 5,000-year-old monument has reappeared in Spain. The megalithic site has 144 granite blocks, which are stand over six feet tall and are known as ‘Spanish Stonehenge.’ Its similarity to the UNESCO World Heritage Site in Wiltshire is striking, but the Iberian version is made of smaller rocks. In the 1960s, it was thought to be condemned to the history books when a Spanish general ordered the construction of a hydroelectric dam in Peraleda de la Mata, near Cáceres in Extremadura.

Abraham Lincoln didn’t do enough for black lives, according to militant proponents of the woke revolution. In October, the San Francisco Unified School District School Names Advisory Committee suggested a list of school names to be replaced in the city. On that list was a school named after Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. In just a few years, the discussion about history and monuments has gone from whether we should keep Confederate monuments to erasing the president who orchestrated the Confederacy’s destruction. Regarding Lincoln, it seems the woke and John Wilkes Booth are now in alignment.