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Tomb scan reveals buried treasure Thursday, October 20, 2005; Posted: 1:02 a.m. EDT (05:02 GMT) Some of the terra cotta soldier statues found around Qin's tomb. BEIJING, China (AP) -- A magnetic scan of the unopened tomb of China's first emperor has detected a large number of coins, suggesting Emperor Qin was buried with his state treasury, a news report said Thursday.

One-Fifth of Human Genes Have Been Patented, Study Reveals Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News October 13, 2005 A new study shows that 20 percent of human genes have been patented in the United States, primarily by private firms and universities. The study, which is reported this week in the journal Science, is the first time that a detailed map has been created to match patents to specific physical locations on the human genome. Researchers can patent genes because they are potentially valuable research tools, useful in diagnostic tests or to discover and produce new drugs. "It might come as...

Grammar analysis reveals ancient language treeIt's not the words, it's how you use them that counts. Jennifer Wild The languages used in Papua New Guinea have few common words, making it hard to determine their origins. When it comes to working out the relationships between ancient languages, grammar is more enlightening than vocabulary, scientists say. There are some 300 language families in the world today. Researchers have long studied similarities between the words in different languages to try to work out how they are related. But the rate of change in languages means that this method really only works back...

Ancient site reveals stories of sacrificed horses www.chinaview.cn 2005-08-24 14:15:53 BEIJING, Aug. 24 -- A trip to Zibo might leave you with the similar impression as to a trip to Xi'an, especially when you visit the relics of horses buried for sacrifice. Zibo, in east China's Shandong Province, is the location of the state of Qi's capital in the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BC). During this period, five feudal lords were able to gain control over the other states, with Duke Huan of Qi the head of the five. The difference between the horse buried for sacrifice in Zibo...

Dig reveals more of isles' bloody history JOHN ROSS NEW evidence of bloody clan battles at a medieval stronghold in the Western Isles has been unearthed by archaeologists. A team from Glasgow University has revealed a fortified settlement on Dun Eistean, a sea stack on the north-east coast of Lewis, thought to have been a refuge and spiritual home for the Clan Morrison 400 to 800 years ago. The discovery of musket balls, a lookout tower and a defensive wall around the perimeter of the island points to battles with the Morrisons' fierce rivals, including the Macaulays. Rachel Barrowman and...

The nonprofit organization Superintendent Roy Romer set up to defend Los Angeles Unified's image against political attacks relied almost entirely on contributions from construction firms, textbook publishers and other school contractors, records released Tuesday showed. Friends of L.A. Schools Inc., which Romer formed in February just days after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced his support for plans to break up the district, received single donations of $10,000 from investment bank Goldman Sachs, DMJM building consultants, Turner Construction and publishers Harcourt Inc. and Pearson Education - all of which have contracts totaling millions of dollars with the school district. Romer defended the...

Genetic testing reveals awkward truth about Xinjiang’s famous mummiesM (AFP) 19 April 2005 URUMQI, China - After years of controversy and political intrigue, archaeologists using genetic testing have proven that Caucasians roamed China’s Tarim Basin 1,000 years before East Asian people arrived. The research, which the Chinese government has appeared to have delayed making public out of concerns of fueling Uighur Muslim separatism in its western-most Xinjiang region, is based on a cache of ancient dried-out corpses that have been found around the Tarim Basin in recent decades. “It is unfortunate that the issue has been so politicized because it...

Prehistoric jawbone reveals evolution repeating itself By Catherine Gianaro Medical Center Public Affairs A 115-million-year-old fossil of a tiny monotreme, an egg-laying mammal related to the platypus, provides compelling evidence of multiple origins of acute hearing in humans and other mammals. The discovery of a prehistoric jawbone, reported in February in the journal Science, suggests that the transformation of bones from the jaw into the small bones of the middle ear occurred at least twice in the evolutionary lines of living mammals after their split from a common ancestor some 200 million years ago. “The earbones are still attached to...

February 17, 2005 4:30 AM Alpine iceman reveals Stone Age secrets By Sophie Hardach BOLZANO, Italy (Reuters) - Some 5,300 years after his violent death, a Stone Age man found frozen in the Alps is slowly revealing his secrets to a global team of scientists. But despite more than a decade of high-tech efforts by geneticists, botanists and engineers many questions about his life and death remain unsolved. And rumours of a deadly curse on those who found him continue to swirl. German amateur mountaineer Helmut Simon and his wife spotted Oetzi, as he became known, in the mountains between...

East Bulgaria Reveals Minoan Pertainence 18 January 2005, Tuesday. The Eastern Rhodopes revealed an old-times funeral site obviously pertaining to an ancient Crete-Micenae cult dating 3,500 years ago. The demographic researcher Mincho Gumarov of Kardzhali has donated the local museum with unique finds of ceramics, bronze and silver. The artifacts from the late bronze epoch were found in the nearby Samara cave. The find's pertainence to the epoch of legendary Micenae derives from the found labris (short two-face ritual axe, characteristic of that civilisation) and a silver amulet of the cult to Mother Earth, as well as pieces of surgery...

A Justice Department lawyer may have been laying the groundwork for the Iraq invasion long before it was discussed publicly by the White House. Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s...

A noble find reveals the life in the past www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-03 11:02:53 BEIJING, Dec. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Chicken fighting, women dancing with long silk sleeves and other colourful mural portrayals of the ancient Chinese captivated archaeologists when they entered an ancient tomb in Shaanxi Province. The hostess and her female guests constitute a part of the murals found in an ancient tomb in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province. [file photo] The murals have been considered a rare find, according to Cheng Linquan, deputy director of the Xi'an Research Institute of Archaeology. They provide visual evidence for the study...

Maize reveals traces of old breeding project Emma Marris Gene suggests ancient culture selected patterns in its corn. Teosinte grass (left) compared to "reconstructed" primitive maize, created by crossing teosinte with Argentine pop corn. © The Doebley Lab The people of Mesoamerica are largely responsible for the golden corn we grow today, having domesticated tough teosinte grass thousands of years ago and bred it into modern maize. Researchers have now located the gene responsible for some of the traits that the Mesoamericans were selecting. The discovery should help scientists understand how plants develop, and reveals just how strict the ancient...

Atlantis Hunt Reveals Structures in Sea Off Cyprus Sat Nov 13, 2004 06:33 AM ET NICOSIA (Reuters) - An American researcher on the trail of the lost city of Atlantis has discovered evidence of man-made structures submerged in the sea between Cyprus and Syria, a member of his team said Saturday. Robert Sarmast, who is convinced the fabled city lurks in the watery depths off Cyprus, will give details of his findings Sunday."Something has been found to indicate very strongly that there are man-made structures somewhere between Cyprus and Syria," a spokesperson for the mission told Reuters. The mystery of...

Mummy Hair Reveals Drinking Habits By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Sept. 23, 2004 Mummy hair has revealed the first direct evidence of alcohol consumption in ancient populations, according to new forensic research.The study, still in its preliminary stage, examined hair samples from spontaneously mummified remains discovered in one of the most arid regions of the world, the Atacama Desert of northern Chile and southern Peru. The research was presented at the 5th World Congress on Mummy Studies in Turin, Italy, this month. “ In modern human hair the levels would generally be in the ranges of social drinking, but we...

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites) on Friday unveiled his plan to deal with "Benedict Arnold" companies that he has repeatedly criticized during the campaign for reaping tax benefits while shipping U.S. jobs overseas. But his proposal to end an estimated $12 billion annually in corporate tax relief is certain to stir stiff opposition from some of America's largest multinational companies who are currently enjoying those breaks. And private economists questioned whether it would do much to halt the hemorrhaging of manufacturing jobs to foreign countries. Speaking at Wayne State University in Detroit, Kerry said...

According to the publisher's press release, Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War, by Douglas Brinkley, "was never intended as a political biography"--meaning, I suppose, that it is not meant to be confused with those ghost-written, election-year puffers and potboilers under whose weight the remainder-tables of America's bookstores are already beginning to buckle and break. Tour of Duty is intended to be a real book that makes an enduring contribution to the national letters--akin to the moving and beautifully written "Faith of My Fathers," by John McCain and Mark Salter, rather than "A Charge to Keep," by George...

<p>MODESTO - Scott Peterson's defense lawyer failed Tuesday to get murder charges thrown out against his client, but he did, for the first time, spell out just how he contends Laci Peterson and her unborn son died and ended up along the banks of the San Francisco Bay.</p>

The FBI's Terrorism Task Force is investigating an incident that occurred last month at a girls' yeshiva in Pikesville, Maryland. The Baltimore Jewish Times reports that an alert parent spotted a young man, later identified as a Saudi Arabian national, and a female companion videotaping students at Bais Yaakov School for Girls. The parent followed the filming couple for about a mile, despite their efforts to lose him. He wrote down their license plate number, called the police, and later filed a formal complaint with the FBI. The Saudi man has been questioned, his camera has been confiscated, and the...

<p>SACRAMENTO (AP) - A new U.S. Census report on California's fastest-growing cities and towns draws a portrait of a vast inland migration as residents relentlessly search for a cheaper place to call home.</p> <p>Whether to suburban Sacramento's Lincoln in the north or the Inland Empire's Beaumont and Murrieta in the south, thousands, statistics show, have taken eastbound highways to the hills and valleys of Central California.</p>