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: AP
Jul 1, 2009
Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday.
However, other scientists said that the finding, while significant, won't end the debate over the origin of anthropoids — the primate grouping that includes ancient species as well as modern humans.
The pieces of 38 million-year-old jawbones and teeth found near Bag
Source: http://www.livinginperu.com
Jul 1, 2009
The last time global warming came to the Andes it produced the Inca Empire. A team of English and U.S. scientists has analyzed pollen, seeds and isotopes in core samples taken from the deep mud of a small lake not far from Machu Picchu and their report says that "the success of the Inca was underpinned by a period of warming that lasted more than four centuries."
The four centuries coincided directly with the rise of this startling, hyper-productive culture that at its ze
Source: Star.com
Jul 1, 2009
Returned from Ireland after more than 180 years, Maliseet birchbark boat inspires rebirth of craft
A culturally significant First Nation's artifact that has languished in Ireland for more than 180 years has returned to Canada, completing a circle of tradition for those on the New Brunswick reserves where it originated.
The "Grandfather Akwiten canoe," believed to be the oldest birchbark canoe in the world, was built by Maliseet craftsmen in the early 1820s bef
Source: Edwin Black at the TheCuttingEdgeNews.com
Jul 1, 2009
“Russia is showing its contempt and disdain for international law, the American judicial system, and basic principles of fairness and justice,” said Nathan Lewin, attorney for the world-wide Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
The remark was in response to Russia’s surprise announcement, filed with the federal court in Washington, D.C. in recent days. In an epic legal and diplomatic contest that dates back to the World War I, Russia is defiantly refusing to release some 381 spiritual manuscr
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jul 1, 2009
The Turin Shroud was faked by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci
using pioneering photographic techniques and a sculpture of his own
head, a television documentary claims.
The artefact has been regarded by generations of believers as the face
of the crucified Jesus who was wrapped in it, but carbon-dating by
scientists points to its creation in the Middle Ages.
American artist Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School
of Visual Arts in New York who came to promine
Source: AP
Jul 1, 2009
As Congress takes on President Obama's call for overhauling health care, the
desire for change will be tested _ by the expense, by politics, by
resistance from doctors and private insurers, and by the general fear by
some of"socialized medicine."
The terms of the debate are as old as the debate itself.
Since Franklin Roosevelt considered national health care in the 1930s,
virtually every president has sought to expand or universalize medical
coverage. Public support has been as cons
Source: American Scientist
Jul 1, 2009
Even by archaeological standards, Blombos Cave is a modestly sized shelter. Yet artifacts recovered from just 13 cubic meters of deposit inside transformed our understanding of when our species developed behavioral attributes we associate with “modern” humans. From this cramped hole in a sandstone cliff on the Southern Cape coast of South Africa, Christopher Henshilwood and his colleagues unearthed evidence of symbolic expression, in the form of abstract designs (carved ochre bars) and personal
Source: History Today
Jun 30, 2009
I have vivid memories of a school trip to Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Oranienburg, 35 kilometres north of Berlin: the crematories, the so-called ‘Station Z’ built for the extermination of prisoners in 1942, the infirmary... I have no recollection, however, of the camp brothel.
Robert Sommer’s latest book The Concentration Camp Bordello: Sexual Forced Labor in National Socialistic Concentration Camps (Das KZ-Bordell) provides, however, for the first time a comprehensive study
Source: AP
Jun 30, 2009
For the second time in two years, Polish officials began building a new museum of Jewish history in Warsaw on Tuesday that they hope will become a major cultural landmark.
An earlier groundbreaking ceremony for the planned Museum of the History of Polish Jews took place in 2007 in the presence of the Polish president, but bureaucratic obstacles then held up construction.
On Tuesday, museum officials and politicians gathered again at the museum site in the heart of the f
Source: AP
Jun 30, 2009
A July 27 public hearing is scheduled in Orange County on a Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed near the Wilderness Civil War battlefield.
The hearing scheduled by supervisors Tuesday night is the final step before the Board of Supervisors takes up the proposal. Supervisors have final say on the proposed 138,000-square-foot store.
Last week, the Planning Commission voted 5-4 to recommend approval of a special use permit for the store in Locust Grove. Supervisors do not have
Source: National Geographic
Jun 30, 2009
Inside a newly discovered underground chamber, Israeli archaeologist Adam Zertal points to an unseen carving that he suspects may be a Zodiac sign that dates back to the Roman period around the first century A.D.
The largest human-made cave in Israel, the 1-acre (0.4-hectare) space in the Jordan Valley is thought to have begun as a quarry. In subsequent centuries it may have served as a monastery and a hideout for persecuted Christians or the Roman army, Zertal said.
Source: Canadian Press
Jun 30, 2009
A team at McMaster University has uncovered a historical glimpse of Canadiana - a bill of treason connected to the Upper Canada Rebellion of 1837.
Written on parchment and dated March 1838, the bill was filed against William Rogers, a yeoman living in or near Albion, York Township, Upper Canada.
The uprising was led by William Lyon Mackenzie, a Scottish-Canadian journalist, reformer and politician who was also the first mayor of Toronto.
He rallied 400 reb
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jun 30, 2009
Forty-six countries have vowed to increase efforts to return art and property stolen from Jews during the Holocaust. Delegates are to sign a non-binding declaration in the Czech Republic on Tuesday.
"A major accomplishment" was how Stuart Eizenstat, head of the American delegation to the Prague Holocaust Assets Conference, described the outcome of the five-day event.
Source: Deutsche Welle
Jun 30, 2009
A legal dispute surrounding an antique golden vase being held in a museum vault in Mainz shines light on the surprisingly important role Germany plays in the often shady world of antiques trading.
The case sounds more like an esoteric crime novel than a simple legal tussle, involving as it does archaeologists, rare-coin dealers, customs officials, and the Iraqi embassy in Berlin.
At its heart is a golden vase just six centimeters high that may or may not have its origin
Source: Fox News
Jun 30, 2009
Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing, NASA may have found the long-lost original Apollo 11 videotapes.
If true, as Britain's Sunday Express reports, the high-quality tapes may give us a whole new view of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's lunar strolls.
Back on July 20, 1969, the raw video feed from the moon was beamed to the Parkes Observatory radio telescope in southeastern Australia, and then compressed and sent to Mission Control in Houston
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Jun 30, 2009
The British recession was much more severe than first thought in the
first three months of the year, with the economy suffering its
sharpest quarterly contraction in more than 50 years, official figures
showed on Tuesday.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the economy actually
shrank by 2.4pc in the first quarter compared with the final three
months of 2008, much more sharply than its first estimate of 1.9pc.
ONS records show that the last time the British economy c
Source: CBS News
Jun 30, 2009
State Still Has About 4,000 Unclaimed Medals, Struck in 1866; Available to Descendants of Vets.
The medals are all that remain of an order for 26,000 medals for veterans that the state placed just after the war, Division of Culture and History historian Greg Carroll said. While several states struck medals after the war, West Virginia is one of the few that has any left.
Each of the remaining medals bears the name of a veteran and his military unit. Most are for an hon
Source: BBC
Jun 30, 2009
A tree which had been thought to have died out two million years ago is being grown in the north west Highlands.
The grove at Inverewe Garden is claimed to be the most northerly planting of Wollemi Pine.
Owners the National Trust for Scotland said the tree, which dates from Jurassic times, could survive for up to 1,000 years. They were cultivated from trees found to have survived in a single isolated grove in Australia.
Th
Source: New York Times
Jun 30, 2009
Forlornly unidentified and altogether forgotten, these sites have been literally lost to history. On Avenue of the Americas, there is a block where the first cellphone call was completed in 1973; on West 125th Street, where the old Blumstein’s department store stood, nothing marks the place where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was stabbed in 1958. Then there is the spot on Fifth Avenue where Winston Churchill, crossing against the light, was struck by a car in 1931 and nearly killed.
Source: BBC
Jun 30, 2009
The second of three living survivors from the Tuol Sleng detention centre run by the Khmer Rouge has told a Cambodia tribunal how he was tortured.
Former mechanic Chum Mey, 63, told the United Nations-backed war crimes court that his toenails were torn out and he was subjected to electric shocks.
He said he was tortured repeatedly for 12 days and nights.
Chum Mey told the tribunal he had been working at a sewing machine factory in 1978 when he was brought
