This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: BBC News
September 1, 2011
The extent of US medical experiments in Guatemala on STDs during the 1940s is greater than previously thought, health authorities have told the BBC.The number of infected people could be as high as 2,500, says the president of the Medical Association of Guatemala.According to a US report released on Monday, 1,300 Guatemalans were infected without their knowledge to study the effects of penicillin.US scientists knew they were violating ethical rules, the report found.There is also enough evidence to conclude there was collaboration between US and Guatemalan authorities at the time of the tests, Carlos Mejia, a member of the commission established by the Guatemalan government to investigate the experiments, told BBC Mundo.At least nine Guatemalan doctors were involved in these experiments, he said....
Source: Scientific American
September 1, 2011
"There's a reason we've never gone back to the moon," teases the poster for the new horror sci-fi flick "Apollo 18." The movie claims to reveal decades-old footage of astronauts on a secret mission two years after Apollo 17 — the last real expedition to the moon — flew in 1972. (Without giving away anything that isn't in the trailer, lunar aliens apparently share some blame for our 40-year absence from the moon.)In actuality, NASA did prepare for Apollos 18, 19 and 20. But these missions were scrapped amid budgetary concerns and a decline in public interest."The whole world was glued to Apollo 11," said David R. Williams, planetary curation scientist at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "But by the time they got to 16 and 17, the general public just really wasn't that interested anymore." [Lunar Legacy: 45 Apollo Moon Mission Photos]
Source: BBC
September 1, 2011
At the end of the 19th Century, the thylacine had a price on its head.
The strange marsupial carnivore, which became extinct in 1936, was thought to kill sheep. Sheep farming was the backbone of the Australian economy, and the government duly set up a bounty scheme to exterminate the species.
But a new study has now revealed that the marsupial carnivore's jaws were too weak to snare a struggling adult sheep.
The findings are reported in the Journal of Zoology.
As well as revealing the injustice of its being hunted, the study also suggests that the animal's diet contributed significantly to its demise....
Source: BBC
August 31, 2011
The tomb for the original builders of Stonehenge could have been unearthed by an excavation at a site in Wales.
The Carn Menyn site in the Preseli Hills is where the bluestones used to construct the first stone phase of the henge were quarried in 2300BC.
Organic material from the site will be radiocarbon dated, but it is thought any remains have already been removed.
Archaeologists believe this could prove a conclusive link between the site and Stonehenge.
The remains of a ceremonial monument were found with a bank that appears to have a pair of standing stones embedded in it.
The bluestones at the earliest phase of Stonehenge - also set in pairs - give a direct architectural link from the iconic site to
Source: BBC
September 1, 2011
The world's earliest sophisticated stone tools have been found near Lake Turkana in northwest Kenya.
The teardrop-shaped hand-axes date to about 1.76 million years ago, and would have been used for a range of tasks from chopping wood to cutting up meat.
They would have been so useful in fact that scientists describe them as the "Swiss army knife" of the Stone Age.
Researchers tell the journal Nature that the tools were probably made by the human ancestor Homo erectus.
This was a bigger-brained, smarter and more dextrous creature than any human species before it....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 2, 2011
The BBC is risking the ire of Charles Dickens’s fans with a new BBC Two adaptation of his unfinished final novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood....
Dickens wrote only half the psychological thriller before his death on June 9, 1870, leaving readers puzzling over how it might have ended.
Gwyneth Hughes - who wrote the TV thriller Five Days and Miss Austen Regrets - has taken on the unenviable task of completing the tale for a BBC Two drama, due to be broadcast in the bicentenary of Dickens’s birth next year.
The BBC insists the story remains relevant some 140 years after its conception, billing the two-part drama as “a strange, disturbing and modern tale about drugs, stalking and darkness visible”....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
September 1, 2011
Eva Peron, the former Argentine first lady, is believed to have kept Nazi treasures taken from wealthy Jewish families killed in concentration camps, according to a new book.
Source: AP
September 1, 2011
The headless remains of Australia's most storied criminal, Ned Kelly, have been identified, officials said Thursday, ending a decades-long mystery surrounding the final resting place of a man now seen by many as a folk hero.
Kelly, who led a gang of bank robbers in Australia's southern Victoria state in the 19th century, was hanged in 1880. His corpse's fate was unknown, though it was long suspected his body lay alongside 33 other executed inmates in a mass grave at a prison.
Officials pinpointed the location of the grave site in 2008 and later exhumed the bodies for analysis. A DNA sample from one of Kelly's descendants confirmed that one of the skeletons -- which was missing most of its skull -- was that of the notorious Ned, said Victoria Attorney General Robert Clark....
Source: CNN
August 31, 2011
Cell phones and pagers, airplane engines, a door from a police squad car, a mother's wallet and credit cards. Those items survived when terrorists flew two planes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City during the September 11 attacks.
The Newseum in Washington, D.C., is expanding its FBI exhibit with a new display of artifacts from 9/11 and other terrorist plots that have never been on display to the public before.
"War on Terror: The FBI's New Focus" will open Friday in plenty of time for the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The Newseum selected 60 pieces of evidence the FBI had in storage for use in terror trials, including huge pieces of an airplane that survived ramming into the World Trade Center towers...
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
September 1, 2011
One of America’s most famous historical figures who wrote the Declaration of Independence might not have fathered his slave’s children after all.It had been believed for more than a decade that former U.S. President Thomas Jefferson fathered his slave Sally Hemings’s youngest son, Eston.But DNA evidence that showed a Jefferson male fathered the boy actually suggests Mr Jefferson’s brother Randolph was the dad, a new book says.It’s an important debate because of America’s history of slavery and race - and Mr Jefferson’s controversial ownership of slaves....
Source: AP
August 30, 2011
WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture is planning an exhibit with Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello to explore the third president’s history with slavery....
Source: AP
August 31, 2011
NEW YORK (AP) — An ABC special with never-before-heard interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy will air Sept. 13....Originally planned for one hour, the special will now fill two hours in prime time and feature Diane Sawyer's interview with the couple's daughter, Caroline Kennedy....
Source: Telegraph (UK)
August 27, 2011
Ancient Egyptians used gels to style their hair, according to research on mummies indicating that some had looks similar to Marilyn Monroe and Rihanna.A study of male and female mummies has revealed the fashion-conscious Egyptians made use of a fat-based product to keep their hair in place.They used the styling gel on both long and short hair, tried to curl their hair with tongs and even plaited it in hair extensions to lengthen their tresses.It is thought they used the product in both life and death, with corpses being styled to ensure they looked good in the afterlife....
Source: MyFoxDC
August 31, 2011
WASHINGTON - The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial hasn't even been dedicated yet and now there is a new controversy about it.At issue? A quotation on the side of the 30-foot granite statue of the slain civil rights leader. It reads, "I was a drum major for justice, peace and righteousness."The paraphrase comes from a sermon King gave two months before his assassination. In the sermon, he was speculating on how he might be eulogized.The actual quote is: "Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. I was a drum major for righteousness."Dr. Maya Angelou, who consulted on the memorial, told the Washington Post that taking the quote out of context makes King sound like an "arrogant twit."...
Source: Fox News
August 31, 2011
Rare inscriptions on a 2,000-year-old burial box may provide fresh insight to the death of Jesus Christ, researchers said.Called an ossuary, the limestone box could reveal the home of Caiaphas, the high priest involved in the crucifixion of Jesus. The Israel Antiquities Authority, which confiscated the ossuary from looters three years ago, passed it along to Prof. Yuval Goren of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Archaeology who led the authentication effort."Beyond any reasonable doubt, the inscription is authentic," Goren said, after conducting a thorough examination of the limestone box, which boasts decorative rosettes in addition to the inscription....
Source: Slate
August 31, 2011
Before Monica Lewinsky, Camilla Parker Bowles, or Marilyn Monroe, there was Hagar—the world's first known mistress.*According to the Bible, Hagar was an Egyptian slave sent to the bed of her master, Abraham, by his barren wife, Sarah. When Hagar became pregnant with Ishmael—who would become Abraham's heir—the formerly submissive servant turned haughty and began to treat Abraham's lawful wife with "contempt." Sarah punished Hagar for her attitude and sent the slave packing. (An angel of God eventually persuaded a chastened Hagar to return to the couple.) Several years later, after God restored Sarah's fertility and she gave birth to Isaac, Sarah began, once again, to fiercely resent her husband's concubine. "Cast out this slave woman with her son!" she demanded of Abraham. In an instant, Hagar was banished a second time. Her lesson: Any power she had ever acquired was ephemeral, contingent on factors beyond her ability to please her lover or bear him a healthy son. The mistress's pride was no match for the wife's wrath....
Source: Independent (UK)
August 31, 2011
A statue of the late Pope John Paul II, which some critics have claimed resembles the Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, is – in true Italian style – about to receive some early cosmetic surgery.The five-metre bronze monument, which rises from one of the flower beds outside Rome's main Termini train station, was unveiled on 18 May, on what would have been the late pope's 91st birthday. Its abstract rendering of John Paul, who was beatified on 1 May, features a heavy-set head on a minimalist, billowing cloak, intended to symbolise the pontiff's willingness to embrace his flock.But the statue's tent-liked form, squashed facial features and bullet-shaped head did not go down well with church or layman. The Vatican's own L'Osservatore Romano newspaper tutted that the head was "excessively spherical". The public has been far blunter, suggesting that the green-tinged figure looked like Mussolini or even a creature from Star Trek. An online poll in La Repubblica newspaper suggested that 86 per cent of the public disliked the statue....
Source: NYT
August 31, 2011
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture won’t open until 2015, but it is already mounting exhibitions. Next up, the museum announced on Tuesday, is an exhibition on Thomas Jefferson and slavery, organized with the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello.The exhibition, which will examine the lives of six slave families at Monticello, will open Jan. 27, 2012, in a gallery at the National Museum of American History. It will include artifacts in the Smithsonian’s collection, including a lapdesk that Jefferson used to write the Declaration of Independence, as well as objects that have been discovered through excavations at Monticello like marbles, tools, a brass shoe buckle and a bone toothbrush.The exhibition will also discuss evidence suggesting that Jefferson fathered children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemings....
Source: AFP
August 27, 2011
A sculpture depicting Zeus and Hera, king and queen of the ancient Greek pantheon of gods, has been permanently removed from the Acropolis in Athens for safe-keeping, a project supervisor said Saturday.The sculpture -- one of the last of the original decorative pieces adorning the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple -- will be showcased in the Acropolis Museum in Athens and will be replaced by a copy, architect Vasso Eleftheriou said.The Parthenon metope, or decorative frieze space, removed this week had been defaced by early Christians during the fall of pagan worship in Greece, and further damaged in later centuries by acid rain....
Source: BBC
August 24, 2011
Saudi officials say archaeologists have begun excavating a site that suggests horses were domesticated 9,000 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula.The vice-president of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities said the discovery at al-Maqar challenged the theory it first took place 5,500 years ago in Central Asia.Ali al-Ghabban said it also changed what was known about the evolution of culture in the late Neolithic period.A number of artefacts were also found.They included arrowheads, scrapers, grain grinders, tools for spinning and weaving, and other tools that showed the inhabitants were skilled at handicrafts.Mr Ghabban said carbon-14 tests on the artefacts, as well as DNA tests on human remains also found there, dated them to about 7,000 BC....
