Free Republic

Teheran park 'cleansed' of traces from nuclear site By Con Coughlin, Defence and Security Editor (Filed: 06/03/2006) Iran's Revolutionary Guards have taken the extraordinary step of cutting down thousands of trees in Teheran to prevent United Nations inspectors from finding traces of enriched uranium from a top-secret nuclear plant. News of last month's cleansing operation comes as the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-member board meets in Vienna today to decide whether Iran should be reported to the United Nations Security Council for failing to comply with its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Dr Mohamed ElBaradei: scathing report on Iran...

Traces of tsunami in ancient city of Patara Tuesday, December 27, 2005 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News Archaeologists claim that an ancient lighthouse located in the ancient city of Patara on Antalya's Mediterranean coast might have been destroyed by a tsunami that hit the region in ancient times. The ruins of the lighthouse were discovered two years ago during excavations that are still under way in Patara. Professor Havva Ýþkan Iþýk, head of Akdeniz University's archaeology department, which is conducting studies in the ancient city, said they believed the lighthouse was destroyed by a tsunami since a human skeleton was...

Study traces Egyptians’ stone-age roots Dec. 17, 2005 Special to World Science Some 64 centuries ago, a prehistoric people of obscure origins farmed an area along Egypt’s Nile River. Barely out of the Stone Age, they produced simple but well-made pottery, jewelry and stone tools, and carefully buried their dead with ritual objects in apparent preparation for an afterlife. These items often included doll-like female figurines with exaggerated sexual features, thought to possibly symbolize rebirth. Details from a tomb painting from Hierakonpolis, from prehistoric Egypt's Naqada culture. A new study suggests the Naqada people, the earlier Badarians and the later...

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...

Traces of an ancient settlement found on the dry bottom of the Aral Kyzylorda. November 5. KAZINFORM. The scientists of the Institute of Archeology named after Alkey Margulan found some traces of an ancient town on the dry bottom of the Aral Sea. The area of the town amounts to about 6 ha and goes back to the 13-14 centuries, i.e. the epoch of the Golden Horde. As a result of archeological researches there have also been found the relics of different workshops, windmills and storehouses for ceramic articles and the burial ground where the noble representatives of that...

LA PAZ, Bolivia (Reuters) - Tourists and political pilgrims can now follow "Che's trail" in Bolivia, which traces Ernesto Guevara's fatal attempt to export the Cuban revolution to one of Latin America's poorest countries. Authorities opened the trail on Monday, allowing visitors to travel the same route through Bolivian villages and remote countryside that Guevara's small band of revolutionaries took before they were defeated by the Bolivian army. The opening of the trail coincides with the release of "The Motorcycle Diaries," a critically acclaimed film that depicts a young Guevara on his motorbike trip through Argentina, Chile and Peru. Guevara,...

First Wine? Archaeologist Traces Drink to Stone Age William Cocke for National Geographic News July 21, 2004An expert on ancient wine, Patrick McGovern is searching for the origins of the first domesticated grapevine. Above, the University of Pennsylvania archaeologist searches a ravine near the headwaters of the Tigris River in Turkey's Taurus Mountains for grapevines untouched by human cultivation. Photograph courtesy P.E. McGovern Wine snobs might shudder at the thought, but the first wine-tasting may have occurred when Paleolithic humans slurped the juice of naturally fermented wild grapes from animal-skin pouches or crude wooden bowls. The idea of winemaking may...

U.S. Said to Find Iraq Nerve Agent Traces By LOUIS MEIXLER, Associated Press Writer BAIJI, Iraq - U.S. troops found about a dozen 55-gallon drums in an open field near this northern Iraqi town, and initial tests indicated one of them contained a mixture of a nerve agent and mustard gas, an American officer said Sunday. Lt. Col. Ted Martin of the 10th Cavalry Regiment said troops went to the site at midnight Friday after having been alerted by U.S. Special Forces teams, which were suspicious because of the presence of surface-to-air missiles guarding the area. A chemical team checked...

Ancient vessel retraces voyages of the past By Stefanos Evripidou IT LOOKS like a tree house stuck on a bamboo banana. In reality it's the incarnation of a pre-Pharaonic reed boat, designed and built to unravel the mysteries of prehistoric navigation. The Abora II drifted in to Larnaca marina yesterday. Weighing in at six- tonnes, the vessel is a totra-reed boat. It is 11.5 metres long, 3.5 metres wide and 1.5 metres deep. The man responsible for building the huge boat is Dominique Goerlitz, a biology teacher at a school in Germany. As a student, Goerlitz was fascinated by the...

May be left over from last fall, testing to determine-no location yet .God bless the postal workers, we don't look out for em enough.