Free Republic

Imagine a group of Homo erectus, the earliest members of our family genus, living near a coastline on an Indonesia island and well aware of a lush island that is visible only a few miles offshore. One day while on the coast, a herd of elephants emerges from the nearby forest and crosses the beach. They enter the ocean and swim successfully to the offshore island. Could this be the experience that triggers a creative process in our ancestors who are watching nearby? Does their imagination and thinking include not only a desire to reach that island, but ideas about...

A volcano more powerful than Tambora... but no one knows where it is. Dive into a real-life scientific thriller to uncover the eruption that changed the world -- and vanished without a trace. The Lost Supervolcano: Was This the Biggest Eruption in Human History? - Full Documentary | 52:52 Easy Documentary Knowledge | 5.99K subscribers | 274,031 views | April 25, 2025

Europe's mysterious "Little Ice Age" has been traced back to a massive volcanic eruption in Indonesia - thanks to Pink Floyd. It lasted centuries and led to the Thames Frost fairs, when the river froze over for months at a time - turning it into a skating rink. A generally warm medieval period was followed by a mostly cold spell - from the 14th to the 19th Centuries. The weather phenomenon has baffled climatologists for decades. A study - inspired by the 70s rock legends' Dark Side of the Moon - now shows it was triggered by a catastrophic eruption...

The straits that separate the Lesser Sundas from Bali and Java are deep, and powerful ocean currents run through them: so significant is this barrier that it has contributed to the development of what is termed the Wallace Line, a biogeographical boundary that divides the floras and faunas of Australasia in the south from the Asian ecosystems to the north. Currents might be more favourable if one approached from the north-east, through Borneo and the island of Sulawesi, and intriguingly, recent findings indicate archaic hominid settlement there reaching back over a million years. Even the approach to Sulawesi itself, however,...

Warning: Pictures in social media posts contain scenes some may find distressing ====================================================================== A man died two days after his wife set him on fire following an argument sparked by his refusal to give her his phone password. Dedi Purnama, 26, was repairing the roof of his house in a coastal village in Indonesia on the afternoon of Jan. 12, according to local media reports, when his wife called up to him, wanting to access his phone. He refused and climbed down the ladder. An argument followed. He then reportedly hit his wife, Ilham Cahyani, who then grabbed a fuel...

Erectus AhoyPrehistoric seafaring floats into view Bruce Bower As the sun edged above the horizon on Jan. 31, 2000, a dozen men boarded a bamboo raft off the east coast of the Indonesian island of Bali. Each gripped a wooden paddle and, in unison, deftly stroked the nearly 40-foot-long craft into the open sea. Their destination: the Stone Age, by way of a roughly 18-mile crossing to the neighboring island of Lombok. Project director Robert G. Bednarik, one of the assembled paddlers, knew that a challenging trip lay ahead, even discounting any time travel. Local fishing crews had told him...

JAKARTA (REUTERS, AFP) - An explosion on a ferry between the Indonesian resort islands of Bali and Lombok on Thursday (Sept 15) killed two people, an Indonesian and a Dutch national, and injured 13, police said. The boat was carrying 35 passengers, all of whom were foreigners, and four crew, and had just left Padang Bai port in eastern Bali on Thursday morning when the blast occurred. "Two of them died, 13 were injured," Bali police spokesman Made Sudana said, adding the explosion happened off the coast of Lombok. "It seems there was some sort of explosion on the boat,...

Lombok. A United States citizen residing on the Indonesian island of Lombok will appear in court “within two or three days” on charges of blaspheming Islam, police said on Tuesday. Central Lombok Police said the dossier of Greg Luke, 64, from California, had been accepted by the Praya District Prosecutor’s Office. The charges stem from an incident in which police claim the Californian entered a mosque near his house in Kuta, turned down its speakers and insulted Islam. Luke was attacked by a rampaging mob and his home and contents destroyed or stolen in the aftermath. Nurkholis, head of the...