Free Republic

Toxic levels of a pollutant commonly associated with the wastes of modern industry have been uncovered amid the most unlikely of archaeological sites. Long before conquistadors from far-off lands introduced the decay of war and disease, Maya cultures were dusting the soils of their urban centers with the heavy metal mercury. - snip - "Discovering mercury buried deep in soils and sediments in ancient Maya cities is difficult to explain, until we begin to consider the archaeology of the region which tells us that the Maya were using mercury for centuries." - snip - Perhaps the most widely used form...

nce a rarity, cows with light blue or dark ultramarine hides may again be glimpsed grazing on the Latvian countryside among the regular brown, black or white spotted cattle. The unique and hardy breed, driven to near extinction during the Soviet era, has made a comeback over the last few decades as an unlikely symbol of Latvian national identity.... In 2000 there were only 18 blue cows in Latvia, but today they number around 1,500 -- thoroughbreds as well as hybrids. Originally found only on the Baltic coast in the Kurzeme region...

In a seemingly paradoxical study, US researchers found that redheads have a preternaturally high pain tolerance — wait for it — due to a mechanism that ups their susceptibility to sunburns. “These findings describe the mechanistic basis behind earlier evidence suggesting varied pain thresholds in different pigmentation backgrounds,” said Dr. David Fisher of the Massachusetts General Hospital in Massachusetts. He led the fiery study published in the journal Science Advances. The research found that the cells that determine skin color — called melanocytes — play a large role in deciding how people experience pain.

Shocking statements by Biden pick to lead DOJ Civil Rights Division (Kristen Clarke)

WESTBORO (CBS) – Workers at a Roche Bros. supermarket got quite the surprise last week – an extremely rare orange lobster. The pumpkin-like male lobster was easy to spot in a shipment of lobsters from Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia to the Westboro store. According to the New England Aquarium, the 1 2/3 pound orange lobster is “considerably more rare than a blue lobster.” The Lobster Institute at the University of Maine said the likelihood of a lobster being orange is 1 in 30 million. The lobster is believed to be about 7 to 9 years old, and aquarium...

Anthropologists from Wheaton College (Illinois) and The Field Museum have discovered how the ancient Maya produced an unusual and widely studied blue pigment that was used in offerings, pottery, murals and other contexts across Mesoamerica from about A.D. 300 to 1500. First identified in 1931, this blue pigment (known as Maya Blue) has puzzled archaeologists, chemists and material scientists for years because of its unusual chemical stability, composition and persistent color in one of the world’s harshest climates. The anthropologists solved another old mystery, namely the presence of a 14-foot layer of blue precipitate found at the bottom of the...

Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources of strife. The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred by chance in a single individual after the first human exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to the lightest of the world's races. Leaders...