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: Scotsman
Oct 28, 2010
IT IS a major public sector building project which has been delayed, causing headaches for bosses and the public.
But it is decapitated skeletons and 2000-year-old forts rather than red tape and swelling costs that have caused the hold-up for the new health centre in Musselburgh.
Progress on the site has been delayed by at least six months after significant Roman remains were discovered.
Now architects have revealed the extent of their discoveries, which in
Source: National Geographic News
Oct 28, 2010
An ancient English cemetery filled with headless skeletons holds proof that the victims lost their heads a long way from home, archaeologists say.
Unearthed between 2004 and 2005 in the northern city of York (map), the 80 skeletons were found in burial grounds used by the Romans throughout the second and third centuries A.D. Almost all the bodies are males, and more than half of them had been decapitated, although many were buried with their detached heads.
York—then ca
Source: BBC News
Oct 28, 2010
It is 1943, the peak of the Second World War. The place is London. The British War Cabinet is holding meetings on a famine sweeping its troubled colony, India. Millions of natives mainly in eastern Bengal, are starving. Leopold Amery, secretary of state for India, and Field Marshal Sir Archibald Wavell, soon to be appointed the new viceroy of India, are deliberating how to ship more food to the colony. But the irascible Prime Minister Winston Churchill is coming in their way.
Source: CNN
Oct 28, 2010
In July, rocker Ozzy Osbourne became one of few to submit his blood to have his full genome sequenced and analyzed.
The results are in, and it turns out his genome reveals some Neanderthal lineage, according to Scientific American.
Osbourne and his wife, Sharon, are expected to discuss the testing and its results testing Friday at the TEDMED 2010 scientific conference in San Diego, California.
In a Sunday Times of London column (registration required), the
Source: AFP
Oct 28, 2010
Clad in a white linen tunic, sandals in the ancient Carthaginian style and a pendant and beads like those found with his remains, 2,500-year-old "Ariche" has virtually come back to life on the sacred hill of Byrsa where he was born.
The outcome of scientific cooperation between France and Tunisia, the young man has been remodelled and returned to his native soil in historical Carthage, a city state that lasted from 814 B.C. to 146 B.C. He will be given a place of honour in
Source: BBC
Oct 28, 2010
A Belfast film-maker has posted a video on the internet showing what he says could be evidence of time travelling.
George Clarke from east Belfast has been puzzled for more than a year by a scene in a film which appears to show a woman talking on a mobile phone.
The unusual thing is that the movie was made by Charlie Chaplin in 1928 - long before mobile phones were invented.
In the eight days since George posted the clip on Youtube - more than 1.5m people
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 28, 2010
The original rules of basketball will be up for sale in New York in December.
It's been nearly 119 years since James Naismith wrote down 13 rules for a new game he devised as a way to give youths at a Massachusetts YMCA an athletic activity to keep them busy in the winter.
On Dec 10, those rules – considered "the birth certificate of one of the world's most popular sports" – will be put up for auction in New York and are expected to bring in at least $2 milli
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 28, 2010
A 400-year old journal documenting one of England's most notorious witch trials has been "digitised" so that its gory contents can be enjoyed by a wider audience.
The diary - immortalised in the 1968 Vincent Price horror movie The Witchfinder General - tells of how 33 women were branded witches in a trial in the mid-17th century.
The trial was triggered by Matthew Hopkins, an English lawyer appointed by Parliament during the English Civil War to root out sor
Source: CNN
Oct 28, 2010
A man depicted as a hero in the movie "Hotel Rwanda" on Thursday slammed accusations by Rwandan authorities that he helped fund a rebel group.
Paul Rusesabagina's efforts to save hundreds during the 1994 genocide are depicted in the Oscar-nominated movie starring Don Cheadle.
Rwanda's general prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, said he has evidence showing that Rusesabagina funded terror activities in Rwanda.
He wired large sums of money from San Antonio
Source: AP
Oct 28, 2010
NEW YORK (AP) — Turner Classic Movies, that bastion of old films, is making its most dramatic foray yet into original programming.
TCM will broadcast a seven-part documentary series, "Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood," beginning Monday. The series, narrated by Christopher Plummer, will run for seven weeks and cover Hollywood's history from 1890-1970.
For the charmingly sleepy and movie-obsessed TCM, the series is an ambitious anomaly. The cable
Source: Hokumburg Goombah (Blog)
Oct 28, 2010
"The first known photograph of a human being—taken by Louis Daguerre in 1838—has been brought to light this week by Robert Krulwich, at his NPR blog, thanks to the keen observation of a blogger named Hokumburg. Check out the whole story at NPR. What an incredible find!"
—Digital Photographer Magazine, [Emphasis added. The link to this we have somehow misplaced. We will find it and update this piece later.]
If you googled "first photograph of a human" any t
Source: CNN.com
Oct 28, 2010
Washington (CNN) -- The tattered journal, its pages yellow with age, contains the painful memories of a U.S. medic, a man who recorded the deaths of soldiers who survived one of World War II's bloodiest battles yet met their end as slaves in Nazi Germany.
32. Hamilton 4-5-45
33. Young 4-5-45
34. Smith 4-9-45
35. Vogel 4-9-45
36. Wagner 4-9-45
"Some were dying," said its author, Tony Acevedo, now 86. "Some died, and I made a not
Source: Daily Mail (UK)
Oct 28, 2010
The undercover British officer crept silently through the bushes, his tartan kilt a bizarre form of dress for a man who did not want to be conspicuous.
Then he stopped to take in the awesome might of the enemy. Through the gloom, he could make out the 15,000 battle-scarred men and 200 machines of the cruellest and most feared of all the SS forces in war-torn France in the summer of 1944.
Parked up for the night, their tanks, half-tracks and heavy guns stretched as far a
Source: BBC
Oct 27, 2010
particular type of ancient rock art in Western Australia maintains its vivid colours because it is alive, researchers have found.
While some rock art fades in hundreds of years, the "Bradshaw art" remains colourful after at least 40,000 years.
Jack Pettigrew of the University of Queensland in Australia has shown that the paintings have been colonised by colourful bacteria and fungi.
These "biofilms" may explain previous difficulties in
Source: Digital Journal
Oct 27, 2010
Police arrested a Bolivian woman who tried to send a Peruvian mummy in a cardboard box to France using regular postal service.
The archaeological piece, probably from the Inca culture, was discovered during a routine inspection at the time it was being shipped through the Post Office of Bolivia in La Paz bound for the French town of Compiegne addressed to a person identified as Annette Huc, said Tuesday police Col. Adolfo Cárdenas, according to El Comercio de Lima (in Spanish).
Source: BBC
Oct 27, 2010
A North Carolina state legislator says he supports the military, but a flyer prepared by his campaign could lead some to question which country's.
Democrat Tim Spear's campaign has apologised after inadvertently sending voters a leaflet showing actors in World War II-era German uniforms.
The firm that produced the advert touting his support for the military has accepted blame, US media reported.
The state Republican Party obtained the flyer and distributed
Source: Yahoo
Oct 27, 2010
...Lookups on "what is the history of Halloween" rose 220% on Yahoo!. Spooky searches for "the haunted history of Halloween" and "the true history of Halloween" were also scary-high.
Turns out, the modern-day tradition of outfitting yourself in a costume and going door to door for candy has some really ancient roots.
Originally, the festival came from the Celtic holiday Samhain, which means summer's end, and celebrated the end of fall and t
Source: Yahoo
Oct 27, 2010
Other than the rare heartless scoundrel out there, everyone loves stories about regular folks who stumble upon rare baseball cards and stand to make huge profits from their sale.
Take, for instance, the Fresno, Calif., granny who found a card of the 1869 Cincinnati Reds, the first professional baseball team, in a box of antiques. She cashed in for nearly $65,000 and got to tell her story on Jay Leno.
This might be better: An order of nuns in Baltimore stands to make $1
Source: Guardian (UK)
Oct 27, 2010
Give or take a millennium, brewing has been with us for the last 10,000 years. Grain, water, and yeast have been ever-present (although before Pasteur the yeast was a bit of a mystery), while the practice of adding hops for bitterness in beer has only been in general worldwide use for about 600 years. I've often wondered what the beers of 500 and 5,000 years ago tasted like, and now, with brewers looking to historic recipes and unfashionable ingredients for inspiration, it's becoming possible to
Source: CatholicCulture.org
Oct 27, 2010
A group of Holocaust survivors from Yugoslavia and Ukraine have asked European Union authorities to investigate whether the Vatican bank played a role in transferring assets stolen from concentration-camp inmates by Nazi captors....
