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: National Geographic News
Oct 23, 2009
A comet impact didn't set off a 1,300-year cold snap that wiped out most life in North America about 12,900 years ago, scientists say.
Though no one disputes the occurrence of the frigid period, known as the Younger Dryas, more and more researchers have been unable to confirm a 2007 finding that says a collision triggered the change.
The earlier study says the drop in temperature, plus fires from the purported impact, wiped out sabertooths, mastodons, and other giant an
Source: NPR
Oct 23, 2009
Live radio is tricky. Some times reporters talking 'live' say things they instantly regret.
Just ask NPR political editor Ken Rudin, who appears on the Political Junkie segment every Wednesday on Talk of the Nation. He said something this week that resulted in a flood of instant criticism.
Rudin told listeners he thinks the Obama administration is unwise to take on Fox News. The administration has gone to war against the network calling it a mouthpiece for the Republica
Source: Newsweek/OpEdNews.com
Oct 23, 2009
With just under a month to go before it’s released to the masses, Sarah Palin’s upcoming autobiography, Going Rogue, has already been near the top of Amazon’s bestseller list for weeks. No surprise, considering the enormous amount of interest—both bad and good—the former Alaska governor has generated since John McCain named her as his vice presidential running mate last year. But there may be more to the story: over the past week or so, Amazon has been steadily dropping the price of Palin’s boo
Source: Discovery News
Oct 23, 2009
Legendary aviatrix Amelia Earhart mostly likely died on an uninhabited tropical island in the southwestern Pacific republic of Kiribati, according to researchers at The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR).
Tall, slender, blonde and brave, Earhart disappeared while flying over the Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 in a record attempt to fly around the world at the equator. Her final resting place has long been a mystery.
For years, Richard Gillespie,
Source: NYT
Oct 23, 2009
LONDON — In a usual week, “Question Time” is a worthy but largely unexciting television production, a late-night panel discussion on the BBC that for 30 years has attracted a modest, pre-bedtime audience.
But on Thursday, it was transformed into the forum for Britain’s most widely anticipated political showdown in decades, drawing 8.2 million viewers, more than three times the program’s usual audience, on a par with the World Cup games played by England’s soccer team and more than
Source: NYT
Oct 23, 2009
Remember Ida, the fossil discovery announced last May with its own book and television documentary? A publicity blitz called it “the link” that would reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans.
Experts protested that Ida was not even a close relative. And now a new analysis supports their reaction.
In fact, Ida is as far removed from the monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be, says Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York.
Source: NYT
Oct 23, 2009
BERLIN — As thousands lined up to catch a glimpse of Nefertiti at the newly reopened Neues Museum here, another skirmish erupted in the culture wars. Egypt’s chief archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, announced that his country wanted its queen handed back forthwith, unless Germany could prove that the 3,500-year-old bust of Akhenaten’s wife wasn’t spirited illegally out of Egypt nearly a century ago.
“We’re not treasure hunters,” Mr. Hawass told Spiegel Online. “If it’s proven clearly that
Source: BBC
Oct 23, 2009
A routine survey exercise of the Milford Haven waterway has uncovered a World War II naval mine.
The discovery was made by the Royal Navy as it scoured the seabed on the approach to the haven.
Officials say the mine poses no threat to shipping, however the port will be temporarily closed while the unexploded device is made safe.
Milford Haven Port Authority said the Royal Navy was now co-ordinating efforts to dispose of the old mine.
Source: BBC
Oct 23, 2009
A medieval keep near Stirling has become the setting for a new Hollywood production by US cable channel HBO.
Scenes from Game of Thrones, starring Sean Bean, are due to be shot at Doune Castle over the weekend.
The series is based on George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy adventure novels.
Doune Castle is already a place of pilgrimage for movie fans after it featured as Castle Anthrax in the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Source: BBC
Oct 23, 2009
A historic manuscript containing details of every soldier who fought with King William of Orange in the Battle of the Boyne has been discovered during renovation work at Belfast City Hall.
The 320-year-old "account book" had been lying in storage at the building for almost a century without the authorities realising the significance it could hold for military historians and the Orange Order.
The parchment document was written by the Paymaster General Thomas C
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
Today it would hardly pass muster as a child's plaything, but the telescope Galileo used 400 years ago this week to peer into the heavens overturned the foundations of knowledge, changing our perception of the universe and our place in it.
Galileo's "optick tube" had a meagre 9x magnification and was not even conceived for astronomy.
Indeed, when the gadget was first demonstrated, Venetian senators were so smitten with its military potential that they double
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
French authorities must pay Mohamed Al Fayed €5,000 euros (£4,600) after a court ruled that the government was responsible for "unnecessary delays" following the fatal car crash of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Mr Fayed, the billionaire owner of Harrods department store, has long claimed the princess and his son, Dodi, were murdered as part of an establishment plot.
He said he was delighted with Friday's ruling, which said delays to an inquiry into the 1997 crash
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
Months after leaving office with a dismal 22 per cent approval rating, George W. Bush is embarking on a new career as a motivational speaker.
On Monday, the former US president - whose policies inspired millions of Americans to vote Democrat in the 2008 election- will headline at a popular Get Motivated programme, appearing at a seminar about, among other things, "How to master the art of effective leadership".
Mr Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq provoked
Source: Fox News
Oct 23, 2009
Young Indiana Jones was a good story. But the real thing is even better. Meet Andrew Du.
Buried deep in the sand of a remote spit called Koobi Fora hides a treasure trove of artifacts tracing back to the beginnings of humankind. Found on the eastern side of Kenya's Lake Turkana, the site is a prime spot for paleontological research — and there we uncovered a new nonfictional adventurer, in the flesh. Step aside, Harrison Ford: Andrew Du is the real young Indiana Jones.
Source: WSJ
Oct 23, 2009
Nejma Beard sleeps on the second floor of a small brown-shingled cottage where she can hear the ocean and watch deer feeding in the wild brush. Half of the grass on the rambling property grows wild, as it does in her native Kenya; a long rickety staircase descends to the sea.
Sitting here it is easy to forget that this six-acre property, the easternmost oceanfront plot on Long Island, sits alongside multi-million dollar Hamptons estates with their manicured lawns, tennis courts and
Source: Guardian (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
The first email
In late 1971 Ray Tomlinson, an engineer working on a time-sharing system called Tenex, combined two programs named Cpynet and SNDMSG in order to send the first ever network email. It had been possible to send email from one user to another on a single computer for nearly 10 years but Tomlinson was the first to use the primitive Arpanet to send text from one computer to another.
While the same principles are used to send emails across the world tod
Source: Times Online (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
A passenger station said to be the oldest in the world reopened yesterday as a venue for the creative arts after a five-year renovation project.
Edge Hill railway station in Liverpool was the site in 1830 of the inaugural passenger railway journey with the Prime Minister among VIP guests hauled behind Stephenson’s Rocket.
Its 173-year-old Grade II-listed sandstone and brick engine room and boiler house remained disused for years before the refurbishment inspired by Meta
Source: Daily Mail Online
Oct 23, 2009
Standing ramrod straight as they assemble in their blazers and caps emblazoned with BMS, the pupils of the British Memorial School fall silent as their headmaster raises the Union Jack before them.
The school captain steps forward to salute the flag. It is the cue for the entire school to launch into I Vow To Thee My Country.
From first-floor windows of their homes overlooking the playground, local children are chanting insults. They jeer at the school's quaint British
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
A number of valuable ecclesiastical treasures given to the former head of the Church of England have been found dumped in a river.
A haul of 32 artefacts, including gifts from Pope Paul VI and crucifixes once owned by the Queen, have been recovered from the River Wear in Durham.
They had been in the possession of Michael Ramsey, the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury, who spent part of his retirement in the northern city where he served as bishop.
One theory is
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 23, 2009
It is the modern motorists’ dream and easily negotiated without the need of a satnav – Britain’s first ever road map shows there were just 73 main roads in the country.
The 17th Century work by John Ogilby - 'Britannia Volume the First, or an Illustration of the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales', was hailed at the time as a "landmark" in road -mapping.
A first edition, dating from 1675, contains 100 double pages of black and white maps laid out in cont
