Medieval Muslims' stunning math breakthrough

Magnificently sophisticated geometric patterns in medieval Islamic architecture indicate their designers achieved a mathematical breakthrough 500 years earlier than Western scholars, scientists said on Thursday. By the 15th century, decorative tile patterns on these masterpieces of Islamic architecture reached such complexity that a small number boasted what seem to be "quasicrystalline" designs, Harvard University's Peter Lu and Princeton University's Paul Steinhardt wrote in the journal Science.Only in the 1970s did British mathematician and cosmologist Roger Penrose become the first to describe these geometric designs in the West. Quasicrystalline patterns comprise a set of interlocking units whose pattern never repeats, even when extended infinitely in all directions, and possess a special form of symmetry."Oh, it's absolutely stunning," Lu said in an interview.

"They made tilings that reflect mathematics that were so sophisticated that we didn't figure it out until the last 20 or 30 years."Lu and Steinhardt in particular cite designs on the Darb-i Imam shrine in Isfahan, Iran, built in 1453.Islamic tradition has frowned upon pictorial representations in artwork. Mosques and other grand buildings erected by Islamic architects throughout the Middle East, Central Asia and elsewhere often are wrapped in rich, intricate tile designs setting out elaborate geometric patterns.

Asteroid threat to Earth in 2036 ?

The United Nations will shortly be asked to take on a new and unfamiliar mission - to save the Earth not from drought, war or disease, but from the cataclysm that could occur after a direct hit by an asteroid. A group of former astronauts and cosmonauts is warning that at least one asteroid is on a path that could see it collide with our planet in 2036. They say work should begin on considering a strategy to protect humankind from this and other asteroids.Specifically, members of the Association of Space Explorers are planning meetings over the next two years - to be attended by diplomats, astronomers, astronauts and engineers - to draft an international treaty to address the threat. It will be presented to the UN for adoption in 2009."You have to act when things look like they are going to happen. If you wait until you know for certain, it's too late," Russell Schweickart, an Apollo 9 astronaut, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. "We believe there needs to be a decision process spelled out and adopted by the UN."

Congress recently instructed Nasa to increase its efforts to identify asteroids that could threaten Earth. The agency is monitoring the paths of 127 "near-Earth objects" that may strike the planet.An asteroid named Apophis risks passing very close to Earth on 13 April, 2036. Astronomers warn there is a one in 45,000 chance of a direct hit. Its impact would wipe out an area the size of England.

MoD defends psychic powers study

The Ministry of Defence has defended a decision to carry out tests to find out whether psychic powers could be used to detect hidden objects. The previously secret tests - conducted in 2002 - involved blind-folding volunteers and asking them about the contents of sealed brown envelopes.Most subjects consistently failed to establish what was in the envelopes.The MoD said the study was to assess claims made in academic circles and found the theories had "little value".Revelations about the hitherto secret research is contained in a previously classified report released under the Freedom of Information Act. During the tests, defence experts attempted to recruit 12 "known" psychics who had advertised their abilities on the internet.However, when they all refused to take part in the research, "novice" volunteers were drafted in.During the study, commercial researchers were contracted at a cost of 18,000 to test them to see if psychic ability existed and could be used for defence purposes.

Some 28% of those tested managed a close guess at the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife, Mother Teresa and an "Asian individual". However, most subjects produced guesses that were not close to the correct answer and one subject even fell asleep while he tried to focus on the envelope's content.The MoD refused to discuss the possible applications of psychic techniques, but said that the study had concluded there was "little value" in using "remote viewing" in the defence of the nation.

Bat Demon Terrorizes Community

The Bat-Demon that terrorizes men and women in the spice islands of Zanzibar is back again according to reports from the BBC. We've mentioned this phenomena before in several posts. Called the Popo Bawa by the people of Zanzibar, the creature came on the radar with a rash of sightings in 1995. Witnesses have described a dwarf-like creature with a Cyclops eye, small pointed ears, bat wings and talons, notorious for swooping into houses and raping men and women. Men in parts of Tanzania's main city, Dar es Salaam, are living in fear of a sex attacks from the bat-like demon. To protect themselves from the Popo Bawa, some men are staying awake or sleeping in groups beside a huge fire outside their homes. Others are smearing themselves with pig's oil. It's unclear how the pig's oil may help. Full Story

Memorizing Pi to its 22,514th place

Daniel Tammet has peculiar skills. He sees numerals and words as "shapes, colors, textures and motions,'' and that ability makes him a whiz at doing arithmetic and memorizing numbers and phrases. The young Englishman -- he's 28 now -- set a European record in 2004 by publicly reciting the first 22,514 digits of pi from memory. To prove he can learn foreign tongues rapidly, he conversed in Icelandic with a TV interviewer after just a week of exposure to the language. But, as Tammet makes clear in his memoir "Born on a Blue Day,'' there's a tradeoff for these skills: His differently wired brain also makes him awkward in social settings and obsessive about following routines. He uses an electronic scale to make sure he eats exactly 45 grams of porridge each morning -- a gram too much or too little would ruin his day. People like him used to be called idiot savants, though the medical community of today uses "savant syndrome'' for this rare combination of disability and genius. Tammet, who calls himself an autistic savant, has a neurological condition known as synesthesia, meaning that his senses of color and shape are triggered by numbers and words.

Given the public's fascination with extrasensory perception, it's important to note that Tammet's talents have been proved. He isn't a crackpot plugging the paranormal; he has been studied by brain scientists at Cambridge University and elsewhere. His take on life reflects his abilities, as when he describes pi, the irrational number representing the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as "an extremely beautiful and utterly unique thing.... Like the Mona Lisa or a Mozart symphony, pi is its own reason for loving it.'' The author was born on a Wednesday, to him a "blue'' day because his synesthesia prompts him to associate Wednesdays with blue. Growing up in East London he suffered from epilepsy, which he got over only to be diagnosed, at 25, with Asperger's syndrome, a mild form of autism.
View: Full Article | Source: Bloomberg

Two Lake Erie UFO's

New MoD documents discuss UFOs

It is not the sort of discussion you imagine among the grey-suited ranks of Whitehall - defence analysts debating the existence of little green men and speculating about whether they have visited Earth. But a set of newly released internal Ministry of Defence documents gives a fascinating insight into the military's interest in UFOs. They tell the story of the MoD's decision to investigate the threat they might pose and whether alien military technology could be used in the defence of the realm. They also reveal the conflicting attitudes within Whitehall to the subject and the lengths that officials went to in order to keep the project secret.The documents, many marked "Secret UK Eyes A", lay out the rationale for the three-year Project Condign report which analysed more than 10,000 possible UFO sightings collected over several decades - many from military personnel. The existence of the 460-page report was revealed last year following freedom of information requests by David Clarke, a lecturer in journalism at Sheffield Hallam University, and his colleague Gary Anthony.

It was more FOI sleuthing on their part that turned up the current slew of papers. The documents show that the internal lobbying effort for a UFO study began in 1993. In a briefing note from the secret UFO investigation branch of Defence Intelligence - called DI55 - an unnamed author wrote: "The national security implications are considerable. We have many reports of strange objects in the skies and we have never investigated them."I also believe that it is important to appreciate that what is scientific 'fact' today may not be true tomorrow ... If reports are taken at face value then devices exist that do not use conventional reaction propulsion systems, they have a very wide range of speeds and are stealthy. I suggest that we could use this technology, if it exists."

View: Full Article | Source: Guardian

5000 Year-Old Golden Eye Found

A 5,000-year-old golden artificial eye that once stared out mesmerisingly from the face of a female soothsayer or priestess in ancient Persia has been unearthed by Iranian and Italian archaeologists.
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The eyeball — the earliest artificial eye found — would have transfixed those who saw it, convincing them that the woman — thought to have been strikingly tall — had occult powers and could see into the future, archaeologists said.

It was found by Mansour Sajjadi, leader of the Iranian team, which has been excavating an ancient necropolis at Shahr-i-Sokhta in the Sistan desert on the Iranian-Afghan border for nine years.

Italian archaeologists said yesterday that the prophetess had also been buried with an ornate bronze hand mirror, which she presumably used to check her “startling appearance”.

They said the eyeball consisted of a half-sphere with a diameter of just over an inch. It was made of a lightweight material thought to be derived from bitumen paste. Its surface was meticulously engraved with a pattern consisting of a central circle for the iris and gold lines “like rays of light”.

Lorenzo Costantini, leader of the Italian group, said the eyeball still had traces of the gold that had been applied in a thin layer over the surface. On either side of it two tiny holes had been drilled, through which a fine thread, perhaps also gold, had held the eyeball in place.

Costantini said the woman had been as tall as 6 feet, putting her head and shoulders above most other women of the time. Aged between 25 and 30, she had a high sloping forehead, a “determined” jutting chin and dark skin, suggesting that she was from Arabia. Farad Foruzanfar, an Iranian anthropologist, agreed that the woman’s height and her “Afri-canoid cranial structure” suggested that she came from the Arabian Peninsula.

“She must have been a very striking and exotic figure,” Costantini told Corriere della Sera. He said the team had initially thought the eyeball might have been placed in the woman’s eye at burial.

But microscopic examination had found an imprint left on her eye socket by prolonged contact with the golden eye. The socket also bore the marks of the thread, further proving that she had worn the eyeball in life.

Sajjadi said the skeleton had been dated to between 2900 and 2800 BC, when Shahr-i-Sokhta was a bustling, wealthy city and trading post at the crossroads of East and West. He said the woman might have arrived with a caravan from Arabia.

Shahr-i-Sokhta means “Burnt City”, a local name referring to the fact that it burnt down and was rebuilt three times during Persia’s turbulent history before being finally destroyed in 2000 BC — about the time that Stonehenge was erected. The archaeologists said it was not clear what caused the woman’s death.

Costantini said the articial eye was clearly not intended to mimic a real eye but had “a special purpose… It must have glittered spectacularly, conferring on the woman a mysterious and supernatural gaze”.

This would have been effective for someone who claimed to see into the future, such as a soothsayer or oracle.

Analaysis suggested that the woman may have suffered from an abscess on her eyelid because of long-term contact with the golden eyeball.

The archaeologists earlier unearthed what is believed to be the oldest backgammon set in the world, with 60 pieces made of turquoise and agate and a rectangular ebony board, probably imported from India.

New finds at Egypt's city of dead

Archaeologists have been unveiling the latest discoveries from the Saqqara necropolis, or city of the dead, south of Egypt's capital, Cairo. Two tombs dating from between 3,000 and 4,200 years ago are of a royal scribe and a butler. Another find is of sarcophaguses of a priest and his female companion from the 12th dynasty (1991-1786 BC). Saqqara holds a number of temples and tombs. Officials say perhaps only 30% of its treasures have been discovered. The tomb of the royal scribe dates to the period of the pharaoh Akhenaten, who was known for discarding Egypt's old gods. His rule was between 1379 and 1362 BC, shortly before Tutankhamen. Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said: "It doesn't look great because it was built from mud brick and not built of limestone, but I really believe that this tomb is very important." The tomb's dark wooden door bears hieroglyphics of the scribe and his wife. The second tomb belongs to a butler who died 3,350 years ago and contains well-preserved blue and orange paints with scenes of animals and rituals.

It is thought the discoveries show that nearby Memphis was still functioning as the capital, despite the official capital being Luxor in the south. The second find was of the 4,000-year-old anthropoid, or humanlike, wooden coffins of the priest Sobek Hat and his female companion. Their coffins are painted in light orange and have blue hieroglyphics. They have not yet been opened and the mummies inside remain intact.
View: Full Article | Source: BBC News
 

British Police UFO Database

A database of UFO sightings by police officers has clocked up more than 200 cases in five years. Launched by Detective Constable Gary Heseltine, of the British Transport Police (BTP), the unofficial site has seen around 100 officers added each year to date.

Sightings in the News Shopper region include one in Farnborough and one in Gravesend.

In October 1993 PC Tony Francis was called to an address in Gravesend after reports of a UFO from a mother and her son.

The craft was described as changing its shape from that of a bell to an oval with protruding spikes.

According to the DC Heseltine, a seven-page report on the sighting was submitted to the Ministry of Defence, which gave no explanation for the UFO.
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Back in April 1978, PC Alan Craggs was called to an address in Farnborough, following an alleged UFO sighting.

According to the site, PC Craggs described it as: “being 20-30 feet above him with wings like fins on a dolphin.”

The craft had allegedly been in the sky for close to an hour before the officer arrived.

PC Craggs is reported to have said: “I’ve been in the Air Force, I know what an aircraft looks like at night.”

The site lists a total of 43 new reports of UFOs seen by on-duty police officers across Britain in the past year, with the largest number of sightings taking place in West Yorkshire.

DC Heseltine, who works for the BTP in Leeds, said: “After studying the subject for over thirty years I am totally convinced that a small proportion of UFO sightings are genuine and represent an extraterrestrial presence on the earth.

“I urge any officer out there, whether serving or retired to contact me about their respective UFO experiences.

“Anyone wishing to have their identity witheld can do so safe in the knowledge that I will never release their details unless they specifically allow me to.”

To view the site, log on to prufospolicedatabase.co.uk

Bigfoot Is An Alien!

It seems natural that theories over mysterious creatures sometimes intermingle. Two odd creatures that seemed destined for this sort of juxtaposition are Bigfoot and aliens. There's volumes of published material that explores the idea that Bigfoot and extraterrestrials are interrelated, that Bigfoot might be assisted by extraterrestrials in remaining hidden, that the big hairy guy might have received alien implants that give him paranormal abilities, or that he might just be an alien himself. One book suggests that Bigfoots are the inhabitants of another planet and that they regularly visit Earth through teleportation instead of a spaceship. Another theory claims that Bigfoots are alien abductees snatched from the past and returned to the planet at the wrong period of history. Maybe the aliens were experimenting with creating a human being and screwed up? That theory's been suggested to explain Bigfoot as well. The mash-up of cryptids and aliens isn't exclusive to Bigfoot either. Many think that Mothman and the Chupacabra are simply unknown animals independent of UFOlogy. But hey, until the smoking gun of a body arrives, it's all just speculation anyway. What not put the extra- in terrestrial? More on Bigfoots and Aliens

Dozens of UFOs Appear Over London

Late last month at around 5:30 pm, dozens of mysterious lights appeared in the sky above London. The sight was so spectacular that it stopped traffic and caused residents to stare at the sky in disbelief. The local police station received calls in a matter of minutes. A witness described the scene: "There were a group of them - 10 to 15 of them moving together. My first impression was that they reminded me of a squadron of aeroplanes in formation. But they didn't have a proper formation and they were all moving at the same speed. I thought for a while that something was happening in the centre of London. Bombs and planes crossed my mind. But I realised very quickly that they didn't look like any aircraft I'd seen before. They were coming from the north and moving south. And then they kind of stopped and they were hovering. There was no sound. They seemed to fade away and I saw more coming and then they stopped. It lasted about 10 minutes." Full Story and Photo

Ancient chimps 'used stone tools'

Chimpanzees in West Africa used stone tools to crack nuts 4,300 years ago. The discovery represents the oldest evidence of tool use by our closest evolutionary relative. The skill could have been inherited from a common ancestor of chimps and humans, the authors say, or learnt from humans by imitation. Alternatively, humans and chimps may have developed tool use independently, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal reports. Chimpanzees were first observed using stone tools in the 19th century. Julio Mercader and colleagues found stone tools at the Noulo site in Ivory Coast, the only known prehistoric chimpanzee settlement. The excavated stones showed the hallmarks of use as tools for smashing nuts when compared with ancient human or modern chimpanzee stone tools.

Also, several types of starch grains were found on the stones, which the researchers say is residue derived from cracking local nuts. "Chimpanzee material culture has a long prehistory whose deep roots are only beginning to be uncovered," write the researchers in Proceedings. The tools were found to be 4,300 years old, which, in human terms, corresponds to the later Stone Age, before the advent of agriculture. The age of the tools was determined by subjecting charcoal from the same ground layers to the technique of radiocarbon dating.
View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

UFO, Never Doubt Again

Signs Of Early Chimps’ Tool Use

In the rain forest of the Ivory Coast 4,300 years ago, chimpanzees gathered in groups and cracked nuts the best they could–the Stone Age way.

Place the nut on a hard, flat rock. Take a heavy hammer rock, and pound the nut. The chimps must have feasted well and often there under the trees by a black-water river.

Stones excavated from a forest in the Ivory Coast, at 4,300 years old, have use patterns consistent with what is seen in modern chimp sites.

Archaeologists digging in the Ivory Coast's Tai National Park reported on Monday the discovery of several sites where such nut-cracking chimps long ago left broken and discarded stones that were used as natural tools. Starch residues from nuts were lodged in crevices of the stones.

This was the earliest strong evidence of chimpanzee tool use, researchers say in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The discovery team included scientists from Canada, Britain, Germany and the United States.

Chimps in the wild were first observed using stone tools in the early 19th century, and earlier remains of their material culture are scant. No artifacts have come to light showing that chimps have ever deliberately made stone tools by chipping, flaking and other methods, as prehuman species were doing as early as 2.6 million years ago.

The archaeologists, led by Julio Mercader of the University of Calgary in Canada, said the findings in Ivory Coast, in West Africa, indicated that these chimps developed the nut-cracking behavior without human influence. The stones are unlike any food-processing implements used by humans in the region today, and they have use and wear patterns consistent with what is seen in modern chimp sites. The sizes and shapes of the stones appear to be more suited to the large, strong hands of chimps than to human hands.

The remains at the sites, moreover, are virtually identical to what today's tool-using chimps leave behind. The material was buried as much as 3 feet deep and mixed with charcoal from natural forest fires. Radiocarbon analysis of the charcoal determined the age of the site.

So if chimps 4,300 years ago were not mimicking humans, the research group suggested that their capacity for tool use could have been inherited from the last ancestor that the chimp and human lineages have in common. In interviews, Mercader and John W. K. Harris of Rutgers University, another team member, contended that the new findings gave substance to that hypothesis.

Other experts in early stone tool technology said the analysis of the chimpanzee tool use sites appeared to be sound, but they had reservations about the interpretations linking the behavior to common ancestors.

Mercader said extreme care was taken to separate pieces of stone that had been modified through use as a nutcracker from those that are naturally fractured stones often found in streams. He said independent experts, including Harris, were called in for blind tests, and they scored about 95 percent correct in recognizing the stones the chimps had used as tools.

In any case, other archaeologists agreed with the research team's concluding observation: "that nut-cracking behavior in the Tai forest has been transmitted over the course of more than 200 generations, and that chimpanzee material culture has a long history whose deep roots are only beginning to be uncovered." [link]

If whales are telepathic, are humans ?

Whales possess a form of communication that allows them to signal other whales hundreds of miles away. Some experts say it is indeed a form of telepathy. Does human telepathy exist? Is there scientific evidence for this particular form of extra-sensory perception (ESP)?Certainly if human telepathy existed we could explain many weird human experiences. Telepathy would account for, according to a recent newspaper account, a mother "saw" her daughter miles away roll her car over in a traffic accident and "saw" her daughter injured and trapped within the wreckage. It would explain the Australian woman who "felt" her mother die suddenly at the precise moment she passed away half way around the world in London. Telepathy would explain many strange little happenings such as these, or even something that is very common: we hear the telephone ring and we know who's ringing before we pick up the phone.The fact remains that there is no scientific proof that human telepathy exists.Telepathy means direct communication from one mind to another. It refers to the supposed ability to perceive the thoughts of others without the use of recognised senses. The term was first used in 1882 by psychologist, F W Myers.If telepathy existed, it would dramatically violate several established laws of physics. For instance, with telepathy, it doesn't seem to matter how far apart two people are or how many other people there are in between them when the "communication" takes place. The messages seem to be able to span great distances, slide around corners, penetrate walls, and travel under water. The process does not seem to be strictly bound by time either.Those who have attempted to account for so-called telepathic experiences usually cite one of two explanations.The first is the Radio Wave Theory. According to this idea, telepathy works like radio waves. People often speak of "vibes" as though there were telepathic "brain-waves" going from one person to another. The problem with this theory is that if there were some kind of wave, we ought to be able to detect it coming from people's brains. But we cannot. The brain's electrical activity can be detected at best only a few centimeters away from the skull.

There would also need to be a "vibes" transmitter in one brain and a "vibes" receiver in the other brain. No sign of either has ever been detected in any human brain. Also, the strength of the "signal" ought to decay with distance. But it seems it does not.The second is the Timeless/Spaceless Psychic Field theory. According to this idea, there is some unknown "psychic field" in which the impressions of every thought are stored for all time. Telepathy involves somehow picking-up these vibes from this psychic field.However, no evidence for any such psychic field has ever been discovered. Furthermore, if it did, we would be inundated with the trillions of thoughts left behind by every human who ever existed - everyone from Alexander the Great to Hitler's tailor.It is inconceivable to imagine how one brain could pick up only those messages it needed and ignore all the rest. And if it could select which messages to read, what would be the basis for the selection? What brain mechanism would be employed for this, etc.?Scientists have attempted to obtain evidence for telepathy. A pioneer in this effort was Joseph Banks Rhine of Duke University. In 1927, Rhine began conducting what are still considered the most famous experiments in this area. Rhine tested hundreds of people using cards specially designed by his colleague, Karl Zener.
View: Full Article | Source: The Register

Large body of water found in Earth's mantle

A seismologist at Washington University in St. Louis has made the first 3-D model of seismic wave damping diminishing deep in the Earth's mantle and has revealed the existence of an underground water reservoir at least the volume of the Arctic Ocean. It is the first evidence for water existing in the Earth's deep mantle. Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., Washington University professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, working with former graduate student Jesse Lawrence (now at the University of California, San Diego), analyzed 80,000 shear waves from more than 600,000 seismograms and found a large area in Earth's lower mantle beneath eastern Asia where water is damping out, or attenuating, seismic waves from earthquakes. The traditional method seismologists use to image the Earth below us is to measure the speed of seismic waves. This will provide a sort of CAT scan of the Earth's core and mantle. Using wave speeds alone is a problem, however, because they cannot distinguish between temperature and composition variations. The research is described in a forthcoming monograph, Earth's Deep Water Cycle, which is in press to be published by the American Geophysical Union.
View: Full Article | Source: Physorg

Proof of Alien Existence

EVP Electronic Voice Phenomenon Voices from the Dead

Electronic voice phenomenon, if true, seems to exceed the bounds of what is physically possible; thus, it is of paranormal origin. Colin Smith invented the term to describe speech or sounds resembling speech on recording media that has never been used.

You may hear actual examples of EVP recordings here. - http://www.trueghosttales.com/evp.php

Some researchers speculate that its origins rest in psychokenisis or the voices of spirits. Psychokenisis connotes the ability to move objects with your mind. It concerns the manipulation of matter and energy with just the mind.

Other researchers, more skeptical, point to pareidolia or radio interference. Pareidolia means that you mistakenly perceive images and sounds as being recognizable. A man in the moon, a face in ripples of glass windows, or hearing messages on records played in reverse are keen examples of pareidolia.

Most EVP sounds are in short, abrupt segments, usually the length of a word or phrase; sentences are uncommon, but not unheard of. The segments are frequently heard in the language of the listener.

A psychologist, Konstantin Raudive, conducted over 100,000 recordings under different conditions. His research amassed some conclusions about elements that all EVP sounds share. They used an altered rhythm compared to customary speech, were short in duration and resembled telegram-like speech, did not follow grammatical guidelines and rules, and several languages were heard over the space of a single recording.

Possible explanations, paranormal and non-paranormal, have been proposed and scrutinized by researchers and laymen.

A paranormal explanation, for example, is the idea that bodiless, ethereal spirits, in the absence of their own vocal cords, imprint their messages on recording media through some elusive method. Another is that extraterrestrials communicate, intentionally or accidentally, through some blip in space-time. The third most common idea is psychokenisis in which the subject is said to possess influence over matter with his mind. This term is popular in parapsychology.

Non-paranormal and scientific explanations include interference, pareidolia, capture errors, processing artifacts, and hoaxes. Interference is common when EVP phenomenon is recorded on devices that contain RLC circuitry. The sounds are, evidently, voices and sounds from broadcast radio sources. Capture errors are anomalies created by the overamplification of a signal at the time when it was initially recorded. A plethora of odd noises can result from it. A processing artifact is a sound that results from attempts to boost the clarity of an existing signal. I.e., frequency isolation, re-sampling, and noise reduction and enhancement can all conspire to create a sound that is artificially unique in comparison to the original.

Important researchers of the past and present are notable in the course of your further studies in electronic voice phenomenon. Some names to remember are Attila von Szalay, Raymond Bayless, Alexander MacRae, Judith Chisholm, Konstantin Raudive, Friedrich Jurgenson, Hans Bender, William O'Neil, and Sarah Estep. Many of these researchers made strides in exploring and popularizing EVP, but they don't represent a good sample of current researchers. This is because there are very few researchers today. There are scant articles in peer-reviewed journals, but EVP continues to be ignored by scientists at large. Experiments have produced mixed results. Despite this, there are several organizations that collect research, articles, photographs, and other media that support the legitimacy of EVP.

In the end it is up to you to decide whether or not electronic voice phenomenon recordings are of paranormal origin or if they have a more mundane explanation.

Nest of dinosaur eggs found in India

Three Indian explorers are giving amateurs a good name. The fossil enthusiasts recently set out on an 18-hour hunt near the central city of Indore and ended up with more than a hundred dinosaur eggs."They are the typical, spherical eggs that researchers interpret as having been laid by sauropod dinosaurs," paleontologist Hans-Dieter Sues told National Geographic News via email after viewing photos of the find. Sues is an associate director for research and collections at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., and a former member of the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. Distinguished by their long necks and tails, plant-eating sauropods are among the largest creatures known to have roamed the Earth.These particular sauropod eggs were found in clusters of six to eight, one of the discoverers told the Hindustan Times.

The eggs were laid during the Cretaceous period, roughly 146 to 66 million years ago, by dinosaurs between 40 and 90 feet (12 and 27 meters) long, he added. Along with the eggs, the fossil hunters uncovered fossilized footprints of the dinosaurs, which used to come from miles around to make their nests in the sandy shores of a long-gone waterway. Dinosaur eggs have been found at hundreds of sites worldwide, Sues said, and "there are thousands of such eggs from the Late Cretaceous in central India." While "it is neither unusual nor unexpected," Sues said, "this is a nice find."

View: Full Article | Source: National Geographic

Which Jupiter moon will reveal the most ?

Yogi Berra supposedly suggested that when you come to a fork in the road, you are supposed to take it. That's just what planetary scientists studying the rich data set from the Galileo Mission to the outer solar system are doing now. They're taking the fork.According to William B. McKinnon, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, the community suffers from an embarrassment of riches, because each of the moons of Jupiter differs in the way that they can reveal more about planets and how they behave. But he thinks it is Europa that clearly commands the most attention. There are four large, moons of Jupiter that in their character and behavior are more like planets than Earth's moon: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. The last three are icy. Io's volcanic hyperactivity is well known, but there are mysteries about the temperature of its magmas and its spectacular mountains and what they might reveal about the satellite's interior processes. As for the exterior moon Callisto, how did it acquire an ocean yet not be deeply differentiated?

Ganymede's liquid iron core is still generating a magnetic field. This was not predicted beforehand, and thus has much to teach planetary scientists on how magnetic fields are generated in the solar system. Then, there is Europa. "Of the four Galilean moons, Europa is the one that has the best chance to reveal the most about the origin of life, which is the biggest unanswered scientific question we have, bar none," he said. "With its massive body of liquid water, multiple energy sources proposed and different ways to provide carbon and other biogenic elements, the central question must be Europa's potential for life. What greater question can you ask of a planet?"
View: Full Article | Source: Physorg

'Doomsday' vault design unveiled

The final design for a "doomsday" vault that will house seeds from all known varieties of food crops has been unveiled by the Norwegian government. The Svalbard International Seed Vault will be built into a mountainside on a remote island near the North Pole. The vault aims to safeguard the world's agriculture from future catastrophes, such as nuclear war, asteroid strikes and climate change. Construction begins in March, and the seed bank is scheduled to open in 2008. The Norwegian government is paying the $5m (2.5m) construction costs of the vault, which will have enough space to house three million seed samples. The collection and maintenance of the collection is being organised by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, which has responsibility of ensuring the "conservation of crop diversity in perpetuity". "We want a safety net because we do not want to take too many chances with crop biodiversity," said Cary Fowler, the Trust's executive secretary. "Can you imagine an effective, efficient, sustainable response to climate change, water shortages, food security issues without what is going to go in the vault - it is the raw material of agriculture." The seed vault will be built 120m (364ft) inside a mountain on Spitsbergen, one of four islands that make up Svalbard.

Dr Fowler said Svalbard, 1,000km (621 miles) north of mainland Norway, was chosen as the location for the vault because it was very remote and it also offered the level of stability required for the long-term project. "We looked very far into the future. We looked at radiation levels inside the mountain, and we looked at the area's geological structure," he told BBC News. "We also modelled climate change in a drastic form 200 years into future, which included the melting of ice sheets at the North and South Poles, and Greenland, to make sure that this site was above the resulting water level."
View: Full Article | Source: BBC News

Ancient Egyptian Artifacts Found In North America

“There are over a hundred man made mounds located from the East Coast to west of the Mississippi and from Canada to Mexico. One in eight of them have produced some sort of artifact. There were also golden, copper and silver artifacts, jewelry, tools and weapons found. The writing on the stone varies with the region, but the ones here are all written in ancient Negev, which was a written language from south of Jerusalem into Egypt.
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Other languages included languages composed of mixtures of Coptic, Greece and Hebrew. The stones were carved from a variety of stones. Some of them were made of clay so that they were easier to work with.” [link]

Can ageing be stopped ?

Gerontologists consider the maximum lifespan for humans to be about 120 years. But with rising evidence for a genetic "death programme," which in principle could be amended, some researchers are starting to believe the limit could be extended.Old age hardly exists in wild animals. Accident, illness or predation usually kill long before the potential lifespan has been reached. Humans, though, especially in the developed world, are pushing in ever larger numbers towards the maximum lifespan, thought by most gerontologists to be around 120. (The world longevity record is held by the Frenchwoman Jeanne Calment, who died in 1997 aged 122 years and 164 days.)In Britain in 1901, life expectancy at birth was 49 for women and 45 for men. By 2002, this had risen to 81 and 76 respectively. This rapid increase in longevity has created hopes among gerontologists not just of an extended "quality of lifespan" well into the nineties, but of lifting the 120-year limit. Ageing science has been divided between optimists and pessimists ever since the first modern theories emerged in the mid-19th century. Pessimists argue that ageing, following the second law of thermodynamics, is caused by the same inevitable decay that afflicts machines and inanimate objects. They accept that biology has evolved repair mechanisms to mitigate the damage, but insist that these merely delay death long enough to ensure the reproductive survival of the organism.

The optimists point out that all animals have immortal reproductive cells ("germlines"), and argue that ageing and longevity are genetically determined through programmes that can in principle be amended. They argue that biology has the tools to cope with wear and tear almost indefinitely, if only there were an evolutionary route to get there. Right now the optimists are in the ascendant, bolstered by recent experiments that have extended the life expectancy of mice from around two years to three, with some reports of up to five. Such progress is unlikely in humans, for whom evolution has already boosted maximum lifespan well beyond comparably sized mammalsincluding great apesbut the work sheds valuable light on some of the mechanisms involved. The recent progress in mice was made by the application of the discovery, dating back to the 1930s, that lifespan could be increased dramatically in almost all animals by a diet low in calories but comprising all vital nutrients. This remains the one proven strategy for boosting life expectancy and slowing down ageing across a wide range of species. (On this basis, occasional fasting, as practiced in some religions, might well extend human lifespan.)
View: Full Article | Source: Prospect Magazine

Moon too static for astronauts ?

Lunar colonists could be in for a nasty shock literally. A team of US scientists has found that the Moon's surface can become charged with up to several thousand volts of static electricity.This charging could release sparks that disable electronic equipment  including monitors, space buggies or even the front door of a Moon base. And it could cause dust clouds that clogs up instruments. What's worse, it can be caused by bad weather in space: just when astronauts need their equipment to give them warning and allow them to shelter from the radiation.But not everyone sees the news as bad. "I'm overjoyed this work was carried out," says Dale Ferguson, a scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. "Data about the surface charging of the Moon was sorely lacking," he explains.Jasper Halekas of the University of California, Berkeley and his co-workers knew that the Moon's surface could become charged when electrically charged particles in the solar wind plough into it. This process, they realised, could have left an imprint that the Lunar Prospector, which orbited the Moon in 1998-99, might have detected.

So Halekas and colleagues scanned through the data collected by the Lunar Prospector, and found that the surface charge can get as big as 4,500 volts. "That's more than enough to do some damage, if the electric field only extends over small distances," says Halekas. Any metal equipment would be vulnerable, though an astronaut might be protected by the insulation of his or her suit.Halekas cautions that their observations were for charging over large areas, so the strength of local fields on the lunar surface is still unknown if the charge is very spread out, then it might not cause a shock at all.
View: Full Article | Source: Nature.com

Major Space Agencies Of The World Cooperating To Reveal The Truth About UFOs In 2012 – Why In 2012?

They know something interesting is going to happen in December 2012. They know the extraterrestrials will reveal themselves. They know very well the cover-ups all around the world will end. There are leaks in India from Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) that all the major Space Agencies of the world are working together to reveal something that will change the way we live and believe in things soon. What can it be other than telling the truth about extraterrestrials?
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Many believe in six years, the extraterrestrials will reveal themselves. They will come and take the center stage of the civilization they created billions of years back. Time has come and most of the major Governments know that well. They do not want any chaos. That is main reason for the cover up in every country including India, China, Brazil, Russia, Europe and America.

The main stream media has started talking about UFO all on a sudden. That is the first indication that something is happening behind the scene. Why all on a sudden, the History channel, The Discovery Channel and the National Geography Channel will start broadcasting the UFO news, cover up stories and more? Even the Fox channel has joined the band wagon.

The governments will now in the next six years prepare the ground work to reveal the facts. They will do that so that chaos and panic is minimum. They will finally get the permission to have manned missions to moon again and beyond. [link]

Nebula In Our Milky Way Galaxy Could Be Extraterrestrial UFO Gateway

“Scientists are observing something interesting. It is an unprecedented elongated double helix nebula near the center of our Milky Way galaxy”, the India Daily reports. Using observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, astronomers report an unprecedented elongated double helix nebula near the centre of our Milky Way galaxy. The part of the nebula the astronomers observed stretches 80 light years in length. The research is published March 16 issue of the journal Nature.
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“We see two intertwining strands wrapped around each other as in a DNA molecule,” said Mark Morris, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy, and lead author. “Nobody has ever seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm. Most nebulae are either spiral galaxies full of stars or formless amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas - space weather. ” The double helix nebula is approximately 300 light years from the enormous black hole at the center of the Milky Way. (The Earth is more than 25,000 light years from the black hole at the galactic centre).

Spitzer is an infrared telescope that is imaging the sky at unprecedented sensitivity and resolution, enabling it to see the double helix nebula clearly.

According some scientists, this may be a new gateway for the extraterrestrial UFOs. [link]

Lake Erie: Fantastic UFO Video

How can you watch this video and NOT realize there is something going on! Here is the blurb from the YouTube listing: "This is the footage that was on FOX News UFO segment Feb 3, 2007…Even though they cut out the good parts! Thought you might want to see the whole clip."

Scientists Discover ‘Shadow People’

Ever feel as though you're being followed? As if someone is behind you, shadowing your every move? It might be your 'shadow person', created by unusual activity in a specific brain region, a new study shows.
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The paper, published in the British journal Nature, describes the case of a 22-year-old woman with no history of psychiatric problems who was being evaluated for treatment of epilepsy. When a region of her brain called the left temporoparietal junction was electrically stimulated, the woman described encounters with a 'shadow person' who mimicked her bodily movements.

"Electrical stimulation repeatedly produced a feeling of the presence of another person in her extra-personal space," said Olaf Blanke, co-author of the study conducted by a team of researchers from University Hospital in Geneva, Switzerland.

When the patient was lying down, stimulation of this brain region caused her to feel that someone was behind her. She described the person as young, of indeterminate sex, "a shadow who did not speak or move, and whose position beneath her back was identical to her own", according to the researchers.

When the patient sat up, leaned forward and clasped her knees, she felt that the figure was also sitting, embracing her in its arms - a feeling she described as "unpleasant".

During a language task, in which the seated patient held a card in her right hand, she described the person sitting next to her and trying to interfere with the task. "He wants to take the card … he doesn't want me to read," she said.

Because it was possible to induce the sensation repeatedly, and because the 'shadow person' closely mimicked the patient's posture and movements, the researchers conclude that the patient was experiencing a perception of her own body.

"The strange sensation that somebody is nearby when no one is actually present has been described by psychiatric and neurological patients, as well as by healthy subjects," said Blanke. Until now, however, it was not understood how the illusion was triggered in the brain.

The temporoparietal junction is known to be involved in creating the concept of 'self', and the distinction between 'self' and 'other'. According to the researchers, stimulation of this region interfered with the patient's ability to integrate information about her own body, leading to her experience of a 'shadow person'.

Although the woman was aware of the similarity between her own movements and those of her doppelganger, she didn't recognise the experience as an illusion of her own body.

Similar shadowy encounters have been described by people with schizophrenia, as well as by healthy subjects, leading the researchers to believe that: "Our findings may be a step towards understanding the mechanisms behind psychiatric manifestations such as paranoia, persecution and alien control."

UFO Crashes In Iran, Alien Rescuers Spotted

Something strange is afoot in the skies over Iran. Recently a UFO omitting a yellow ray was sighted twice in Western Iran. According to eye witnesses, "the UFO has been as big as a ball, with a yellow ray and a bright reddish color in the center. They also stated that the object has been flying at a very low altitude." Experts are wondering if the sighting is an extraterrestrial search and rescue team and the yellow ray some sort of searchlight. This report came just after another report of a UFO crashing in Barrez Mounts in the central province of Kerman. "Deputy Governor General of Kerman province Abulghassem Nasrollahi told the FNA [Fars News Agency] that the crash, which was followed by an explosion and a thick spiral of smoke, has caused no casualties or damage to properties," the report said, adding: "He further denied earlier reports that the explosion has been the result of a plane or chopper crash, reminding that all the passing aircrafts have been reported as sound and safe." Witnesses described the event as an explosion caused by the crash of a radiant unidentified flying object onto the ground. It was not a meteor, officials said, because prior to the crash there was a thick smoke coming out of the object. Full Story

Looking for microbial life on Mars

A miniature detector, 1 million times more sensitive than the ones carried by Viking, will search for amino acids on Mars. The detector will be sent to Mars aboard the European Space Agencys ExoMars spacecraft, scheduled for a 2013 launch.More than 30 years ago, when NASAs two Viking landers looked for signs of life on Mars, the results were ambiguous. Although no strong evidence has since emerged for life on Mars, the planet now seems considerably more hospitable than it once did especially since the announcement last December that liquid water had flowed on its surface within the last few years.But it will be the European Space Agency (ESA), with its ExoMars mission, that will deliver the first comprehensive life-detection science package since Viking to the martian surface. Like Viking, ExoMars will consist of an orbiter and a lander, but the lander will include a rover capable of traveling several kilometers. The spacecraft is scheduled for launch in 2013.One of the critical instruments on the ExoMars lander will be the Urey Mars Organic and Oxidant Detector, funded by NASA.

Urey will search for the molecular signatures of proteins, DNA and RNA in the martian regolith. The project will follow in the footsteps of the Viking landers, says Jeffrey Bada, who is directing Ureys development. Bada is a professor of marine chemistry at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and director of the NASA Specialized Center of Research and Training in Exobiology.ExoMars will contain a drill able to extract samples from two meters below the surface. The craft will deliver soil and rock samples to the Urey instrument, named for Nobel-prize-winning chemist Harold Urey, a participant in the famous 1953 Miller-Urey experiment, which showed that organic molecules could form under primitive-Earth conditions. Organic compounds extracted from the samples will be exposed to a fluorescent dye that attaches to molecules that contain an amine (NH2) group. This common biological structure is part of amino acids and some of the nucleic-acid bases in RNA and DNA. The dye, called flourescamine, is a highly specific reagent, Bada says.
View: Full Article | Source: Astrobiology Magazine

Fossilized Dinosaur Eggs Found In India

In a remarkable feat, three amateur explorers have stumbled upon more than 100 fossilised eggs of dinosaurs in Madhya Pradesh. The eggs, belonging to the Cretaceous Era (approximately 144 to 65 million years ago), have been discovered in Kukshi-Bagh area of Dhar district, some 150 kms south-west of Indore.
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The rare find is a significant step in the study of the pre-historic life in  Narmada Valley.

“All the eggs were discovered from a single nesting site in a start to end exploration for 18 hours at the site in Kukshi-Bagh area, 40 kms from Manavar. As many as 6-8 eggs were found per nests,” an excited Vishal Verma of the Mangal Panchayatan Parishad, a group of amateur explorers, told Hindustan Times from near the site.

“The eggs are from upper cretaceous era when the dinosaurs were yet to be extinct. These eggs can be categorised in three types of soropaud dinosaurs, which were herbivorous. These animals used to come from far away areas to lay eggs on the sandy banks of the rivers in this area, identified scientifically as Lameta bed,” Verma said.

The dinosaurs were 40-90 feet in length, he added.

Along with the fossilised eggs, the team - comprising two other members Rajesh Chouhan and Govind Verma - also discovered footprints of the dinosaurs through which they could also trace the ‘track way’ of the heavy animals now extinct.

Geological Survey of India’s former Director (Palaeontology) Dr Arun Sonakia who was also at the site of the find told this correspondent over telephone, “It’s a good job done by amateurs. With this find, the scientists would be able to know more about the spread of the dinosaurs. It can also throw light on the reasons of extinction.”

“Plus the nesting sites and large number of fossilised eggs would also throw light on the variety of dinosaurs that existed in the cretaceous era,” Sonakia added.

The Parishad had earlier discovered fossilised bones of the dinosaurs in the region. [link]

Finding a way to 'see' extra dimensions

Peering backward in time to an instant after the big bang, physicists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have devised an approach that may help unlock the hidden shapes of alternate dimensions of the universe. A new study demonstrates that the shapes of extra dimensions can be "seen" by deciphering their influence on cosmic energy released by the violent birth of the universe 13 billion years ago. The method, published today (Feb. 2) in Physical Review Letters, provides evidence that physicists can use experimental data to discern the nature of these elusive dimensions - the existence of which is a critical but as yet unproven element of string theory, the leading contender for a unified "theory of everything."Scientists developed string theory, which proposes that everything in the universe is made of tiny, vibrating strings of energy, to encompass the physical principles of all objects from immense galaxies to subatomic particles. Though currently the front-runner to explain the framework of the cosmos, the theory remains, to date, untested.The mathematics of string theory suggests that the world we know is not complete.

In addition to our four familiar dimensions - three-dimensional space and time - string theory predicts the existence of six extra spatial dimensions, "hidden" dimensions curled in tiny geometric shapes at every single point in our universe. Don't worry if you can't picture a 10-dimensional world. Our minds are accustomed to only three spatial dimensions and lack a frame of reference for the other six, says UW-Madison physicist Gary Shiu, who led the new study. Though scientists use computers to visualize what these six-dimensional geometries could look like (see image), no one really knows for sure what shape they take.

View: Full Article | Source: Science Daily

BBC Footage of UFO

Orange Snow Causes Concern In Siberia

There is nothing unusual about snow in the towns and endless forests of Siberia. But when locals in the small village of Pudinskoye woke up on Wednesday they immediately noticed something rather strange: the snow falling from the sky was orange.

In fact, three regions of southern Siberia — a vast area of industrial towns, pine trees and the odd bear — today reported the same mysterious phenomenon. Not only was the snow not white, it also smelt bad. Most of the snow was orange. But some of it was red and yellow as well, officials confirmed, after scrambling to the affected areas to dig up samples. And it was also oily, they discovered.

Russian officials in the Omsk region, 1,400 miles from Moscow, swiftly warned local residents not to touch the snow or feed it to their animals.

“At the present moment we cannot give explanations for the snow, which is oily to the touch and has a pronounced rotten smell. We are waiting for the results of a thorough test on samples,” Omsk’s environmental prosecutor, Anton German, said this morning.

Russian scientists trying to solve the mystery faced a tricky problem. The region is home to so many polluting industries it was hard to identify which one might have been responsible. Could it have been the nuclear plant in nearby Mayak? Or the metallurgy and chemicals factory in Ust-Kamenogorsk? The region is next to north Kazakhstan, a vast area of steppe used by the Soviet Union to conduct its nuclear tests. Or might the rogue snow have been caused by fuel from the space rockets launched in Kazakhstan?

Today environmental campaigners said that Russia had suffered decades of pollution — nuclear, industrial, and radioactive.

“I have to admit yellow snow is pretty unusual,” said Vladimir Sliviak, the chairman of the Russian environmental group Ecodefence. “I can think of only two other cases in the last decade.

“This area of Siberia is beautiful. It’s classic Russian forest. There is a lot of snow. There are a few bears and plenty of wolves as well. It’s OK in terms of biodiversity.”

This afternoon Russia’s emergency situations ministry offered an explanation. Officials said a storm in neighbouring Kazakhstan had swept up clay and dust, dumping it on parts of the Tomsk and Omsk regions.

Not everyone was convinced. Russia’s environmental watchdog said the snow contained four times higher than normal quantities of iron as well as acids and nitrates. “I don’t believe this came from a storm. If we discover that it is an industrial entity that produced this pollution criminal charges will be opened,” said Oleg Mitvol, the deputy head of Russia’s environmental watchdog. [link]

Secrets Of The Icy Sea On Mars

An ocean in deep freeze may hold the key to finding life on Mars, scientists in London said today.

The Elysium sea, a frozen expanse of water 560 miles across, contains ice that was formed within the past five million years.

Today, a team from University College London said that microbes could still be found several metres below the surface, where they may have survived the intense radiation found on the planet’s surface.

“What we really want to find are cells we can thaw out, feed up and grow in the lab. The long-term survival prospect of cells is much better in this frozen sea in Elysium than anywhere else we’ve seen,” said Lewis Dartnell, who led the study, which is published today in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

“The holy grail for astrobiologists is finding a living cell that we can reawaken for studying.”

The frozen ocean, which was discovered in 2005, is just north of the Martian equator, in a region strewn with dormant volcanoes.

The water is believed to have seeped up from fissures beneath the surface, perhaps carrying ancient microbes with it, before freezing some five million years ago.

The study is likely to make Elysium a priority for future Mars missions. [link]

Europe's first stegosaurus discovered

A Stegosaurus fossil has been discovered in Europe, marking the first time the famous plated dinosaur has been found outside of North America. The find supports a widely accepted idea that the two continents were once connected by a series of temporary land bridges which surfaced when sea levels dipped, allowing dinosaurs to cross.Both coasts were very close and the basins between them could emerge occasionally, said study leader Fernando Escaso of the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain.During the first half of dinosaurs 185-million-year reign on Earth, all of the worlds continents were clumped together into one giant landmass called Pangaea. At the end of the Jurassic Period, about 150 million years ago, the supercontinent began slowly splintering: North America, Europe and Africa began to drift apart, and in the widening rift between them, the Atlantic Ocean was born.At times during this million-years long transformation, sea levels rose and fell, and land bridges occasionally emerged between the newly sundered landmasses. During times of connectedness, dinosaurs like Stegosaurus would have been able to cross.

Well-known to any dinosaur enthusiast, Stegosaurus was a bizarre-looking herbivorous creature that had a back adorned by a double row of vertical plates and a tail studded with spikes. It was once thought these strange accessories were for protection or used to radiate heat from the dinosaurs body. But now most scientists think the body armor was probably just extreme example of the elaborate and colorful displays animals use to recognize each other as the same species.The scientists unearthed the new Stegosaurus fossilswhich included a tooth and parts of the animals spinal column and leg bonesnear the city of Batalha, in central Portugal. Preliminary analyses show the fossils to be indistinguishable from a species previously found only in North America, called Stegosaurus ungulatus. While the similarity bolsters the land-bridge case, it provides no information on the distribution and duration of those bridges.
View: Full Article | Source: MSNBC

Woman receives 'bionic arm'

A young woman who lost her arm in a motorbike accident has undergone a pioneering surgical technique involving the rerouting of nerves which allows her to feel she is moving her artificial limb with merely the power of thought. Claudia Mitchell is one of only four people in the United States to have undergone the procedure, but the results will give hope to many who have lost a limb. "I just think about moving my hand and elbow and they move," she told her doctors.Not only can she move her arm and wrist spontaneously, but the transfer of sensory nerves into a patch of skin on her chest allows her to experience the feeling of somebody touching her missing hand. In a paper in the Lancet medical journal, published today, her doctors describe what they call the exciting implications of their surgery. It has the potential to give the patient back their sense of touch, the feeling of greater or lesser pressure on the fingers, the sensation of heat and cold and even an awareness of texture. Artificial arms are usually slow and cumbersome to use. They are controlled by electrical sensors on the skin that detect the movement of the muscle that remains at the point of amputation. But a turn of a hand or wrist is not easily controlled by a muscle in the shoulder, a bicep or a tricep and only movement in one direction at a time is possible.

Many people wear their prosthesis for only short periods or give up on it altogether. The case of Ms Mitchell, formerly in the US marine corps, will bring hope to many. Surgeons at the Neural Engineering Centre for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago have devised a way of redirecting the severed nerves that would have sent messages from the brain to the arm and the hand. In a process they call targeted muscle reinnervation, they remove the nerves from certain muscles in the chest and transfer into them instead the remnants of nerves that would have run down the arm.

View: Full Article | Source: Guardian Unlimited

Underground UFO Bases Near China/India Border

Ufo Digest -
According to the few locals people on the Indian and Chinese side, this is where the UFOs are seen coming out of the ground, According to many, the UFO underground bases are in this region and both the Indian and Chinese Government know this very well….link

Ruins Found In Peruvian Mountains Hold Clues To Ancient Civilization

On January 13th, at the Institute of Andean Studies conference, Keith Muscutt, Assistant Dean of the Arts at the University of California Santa Cruz, announced that the ruins found on the eastern slope of the Andes Mountains may contain new insight into the location of the ancient pre-Columbian Chachapoya civilization that flourished between 800 AD and the mid 1470s.

The ruin, named Huaca la Penitenciara, “The Penitentiary,” due to the formidable height of the outer walls, includes a large ceremonial platform overlooking a plaza and a number of rectangular and circular buildings.

Muscutt told Outside Online that the ruins were first discovered in August by local resident Octavio Añazco and his two sons during a search for a stray animal. Octavio is coincidentally the direct descendant of legendary Peruvian explorer Don Benigno Añazco, featured in Outside’s “Peruvian Gothic” (November 1996). After discovering the ruins, the Añazcos alerted Muscutt, a well-known Chachapoya expert who has spent the last 30 years exploring the region.

The five-month lapse between the discovery and the official announcement was necessary, according to Muscutt, to ensure that the information was presented first to a “responsible audience of experts and researchers.”

The ruins are located on a plateau roughly 6,000 feet above sea level, a surprisingly lower elevation than Kuelpa, the famous Chachapoya mountain fortress that sits at 10,000 feet, overlooking the Utcabamba River. This new discovery contradicts earlier assumptions about the Chachapoya by suggesting that they were linked more closely to the Amazonian lowlands than previously thought.

“It was originally believed that there was an impenetrable barrier between highland and lowland cultures in the Amazon drainage”, Muscutt told Outside Online, “but over the last 50 years, we have found that to be a myth. This new discovery is just another link.”

According to Muscutt, little information is known about this remote ancient culture, but clues from the chronicles of early Spanish explorers and information gathered from Incan history have helped to piece together part of the puzzle.

The Chachapoya, known as “Cloud Warriors,” are said to have ruled the northeastern Peruvian Andes until their conquest by the Inca in the early 1470s. The Spanish conquest and European diseases killed off the remaining survivors in the early 1500s.

Famous for circular construction and masonry friezes, the Chachapoya people used artistic and architectural techniques unlike those of other regional groups. The stone masonry found at the new site mirrors traditional Chachapoya techniques.

Muscutt told Outside Online that the structures are thought to be ceremonial in nature or possibly the home of Chachapoya leaders. “The plaza looks to be an assembly space,” Muscutt said, “and the upper platform could very possibly have been used for rituals.” Hidden under overgrown forest, the ruins are said to have been last used roughly 500 years ago.

The site has been registered with the proper Peruvian authorities and Muscutt believes the next step will be an appropriately authorized archeological study to evaluate possible conservation issues that may play a part in the excavation.

Muscutt told Outside Online that he is currently working with GRB Entertainment and the Discovery Channel to raise funds for the study of the site. The ruins are also slated to be featured in a Discovery Channel series to be aired next year.[link]

Dinosaur Evolved Opposable Fingers 75 Million Years Ago

Bambiraptor evolved opposable fingers 75 million years ago, long before primates developed opposable thumbs.

Phil Senter at Lamar State College in Orange, Texas, US, who made the discovery, said the arm movement would have allowed the Bambiraptor to hold prey with both arms, or use its long arms to bring objects to its mouth.

But even more surprising was that it was possible for the dinosaur to put the tips of the outer two of its three fingers together, the way a human is able to touch the tip of the thumb to the tip of the third finger - a trait not known in any other dinosaur.

Working with models of the bones, Senter found that while most predatory dinosaurs grabbed prey with their mouths, Bambiraptor might have grabbed prey like a frog or small mammal with one hand.

“Sharp claws on its fingertips could impale prey from both sides and prevent it from escaping. Caterpillars would be perfect to grab between claws and drop into its mouth,” New Scientist quoted Senter as saying.

Dromeosaurs, or flying dinosaurs were close relatives of birds, and the most primitive one yet found, Microraptor, had long feathers on both arms and legs.

Sudan: The Land Of Pyramids

There are probably more pyramids in Sudan than can be found in all of Egypt. Yet the wonders of ancient Egypt are known worldwide, while those of its southern neighbor stand forgotten on the banks of the Nile. The checkered political history of Sudan, combined with the country’s rugged terrain and lack of modern conveniences, has kept tourists away from some of the most romantic archeological sites in the world, among them several whole fields of pyramids.

The oldest Sudanese pyramids, dating back to the eighth century BC, stand near the modern city of Karima, downriver from the Fourth Cataract of the Nile. They were built for the kings of Kush, as the land was known in antiquity, who - after conquering Egypt around 730 BC - adopted the old pharaonic tradition of erecting monumental tombs for themselves and members of their families. These pyramids were smaller than the Egyptian ones, and were located near the Kushite capital city of Napata, which once existed in the neighborhood of Karima.

These Napatan conquerors of Egypt, despite their adherence to Egyptian customs and religious beliefs, preferred to be buried not in the land they won but near their home town; after their eventual expulsion from Egypt by the Assyrians, around 660 BC, they really had no other choice, and the burials continued.

It was also near Napata that one of the most important temples in the entire Nile Valley, the Great Temple of Amun, had been erected by the Egyptian pharaohs in the 15th century BC, at the foot of an impressive mountain called Jabal Barkal. Its massive ruins can still be seen in the desert sands.

We owe our knowledge of the Sudanese pyramids to an American archeologist, George A. Reisner, who on behalf of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and Harvard University spent several winters between 1916 and 1923 excavating the Napatan pyramids as well as those at Meroe, a site only 210 kilometers (130 miles) north of Khartoum. While his work represented the first truly scholarly examination of these monuments, he was not the first to explore them. A hundred years before Reisner, various European travelers had passed by and left descriptions, often very detailed ones, of the Napatan and Meroitic pyramids.

One of those travelers, an Italian doctor turned treasure-hunter by the name of Giuseppe Ferlini, went a step further and in 1834 began “exploring” the monuments. His goal was simple: to find the great treasures that rumor claimed were hidden inside the pyramids. According to his published account, he employed a very “efficient” - today we would say “barbarous” - method of conducting his treasure hunt: a laborious and systematic dismantling of the structures, one after another, from the top down. The tragedy, from the point of view of the modern archeologist, is that he did indeed find beautiful gold jewelry in one of the Meroe pyramids! These royal treasures eventually found their way to the museums in Munich and Berlin, and since that time have often been displayed in international exhibitions, such as the one that toured various American and European museums in 1978. Fortunately, despite the explorations of Ferlini and his followers, many of the pyramids survived intact.
Sudan has more pyramids that Egypt

A common feature of all the pyramid fields was their location on high ground, as if to make up for their deficiency in size when compared to the Egyptian counterparts. They were built of sandstone blocks and gave no appearance of having interior burial chambers. These, as it turned out, were cut into the bedrock beneath the pyramid and were reached by a long stairway that began some distance in front of the pyramid and outside the wall that surrounded it. Above the stairway, abutting the pyramid itself, was erected an offering chapel, profusely decorated with reliefs depicting various religious scenes. The reliefs in the chapels and the painted decoration of the burial chambers were largely Egyptian in style, although some elements were more African in character.

While many of the pyramids were robbed in ancient and, as in Ferlini’s case, in more recent times, there was still plenty to be discovered, as Reisner quickly learned. Thousands of small funerary statuettes called shawabtis, small gold objects, wooden coffins, inscribed stelae, hundreds of pots and many other objects came to light during Reisner’s excavations and are now proudly displayed in the museums in Boston and Khartoum. They all bear witness to the high degree of artistic and economic development of this lost kingdom on the Nile.

Many of the earliest objects were inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphs and thus provided clues to the identity of the owners, enabling Reisner and his assistant, Dows Dunham, to establish an outline of the royal chronology. Such clues, however, were not always available, and Reisner was faced with the double problem of identifying the “owners” of the remaining unassigned pyramids, and finding out where they probably fell in the regnal sequence. This task was further complicated by the introduction, in the third century BC, of a native writing system which, to this day, has not been deciphered.

Reisner’s solution was remarkable in its simplicity; he simply assumed that the most attractive and visible position in any given cemetery had been occupied first, and that the succeeding burials had been arranged farther and farther away. By combining this locational approach with a stylistic and architectural analysis of the pyramids, Reisner was able to establish a chronology which, with modifications, is still used by historians today.

The modern visitor is less apt to travel to far-away Karima, but a day trip from Khartoum to Meroe is quite easy. Reisner himself worked on the three pyramid fields of Meroe (300 BC to AD 350), and other scholars excavated the ruins of Meroe city, which the well-known British writer Basil Davidson described as one of the largest archeological sites in the world. Since the Meroe pyramids are now a prime tourist attraction, the Sudanese authorities have launched a conservation and reconstruction program to make good the deeds of Ferlini and his ilk and to develop the site for tourists - including the restoration of some of the pyramids to their original state. However, tourists are not yet flocking to Meroe in great numbers. This makes the place uniquely attractive compared with other, usually overcrowded ancient sites, and gives the visitor a chance to admire some of the most magnificent monuments of the African continent in peaceful solitude. Spending a night in the desert under the beautiful southern sky, near pyramids built centuries ago for the powerful kings of Kush, is an experience without compare.
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