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: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2010
Researchers looking at almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from cancer when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.
The findings suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition.
The study showed the disease rate has risen dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childho
Source: AFP
Oct 14, 2010
VISCRI, Romania (AFP) – It could have been the end of the centuries-old village of Viscri in the hills of Transylvania when almost all its inhabitants, Saxons of German origin, left in 1989 at the collapse of communism.
After all, how could such a small village survive in the poor and remote Romanian countryside?
But Romanians -- Roma Gypsies as well as non Roma -- have breathed new life into the picturesque village.
They moved into the abandoned houses and
Source: Yahoo News
Oct 14, 2010
ATHENS, Greece – Riot police clashed with protesting Culture Ministry workers barricading the ancient Acropolis on Thursday, using tear gas to clear the entrance to Greece's most famous landmark.
But the monument remained closed for the rest of the day as guards there launched a strike in solidarity with the evicted protesters. Protest organizers said they would gather again at the Acropolis early Friday, but it was unclear whether they would attempt to block the entrance.
Source: Salon
Oct 14, 2010
Now that the dramatic, round-the-clock rescue of 33 Chilean miners has finally come to a close, it's worth asking: "Why do we love a story about people in holes?" Call it the "Timmy in a Well trope" -- in news, as in entertainment, we are riveted by people stuck underground.
"I suppose there are mythic elements at work here," says author Melissa Faye Green, who wrote "Last Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disaster." "These are me
Source: Discovery News
Oct 14, 2010
An Italian researcher may have discovered a huge network of earthworks representing birds, snakes and other animals in Peru, according to a study published on the Cornell University physics website arXiv.
Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, assistant professor at the department of physics of Turin's Polytechnic University, used Google satellite maps and AstroFracTool, an astronomical image-processing program which she developed, to investigate over 463 square miles of land around Peru's Tit
Source: National Parks Traveler
Oct 14, 2010
Long after his death we continue to celebrate the brilliance of Ansel Adams, who arguably defined landscape photography, often while working in national parks to capture the magnificence of nature.
Even today, more than a quarter-century after his death, there's a steady clamor for the photographer's images. When word broke earlier this year that an overlooked cache of his negatives had been found at a garage sale, it became national news...and sparked more than a little controversy
Source: Telegraph (UK)
Oct 14, 2010
Baroness Thatcher has been forced to pull out of a Downing Street party to mark her 85th birthday after being taken ill with flu, Downing Street said today.
The former prime minister had been due to attend a gathering of around 150 friends and former colleagues hosted by David Cameron to mark the milestone.
It will still go ahead at her insistence, No 10 said, with a fresh event to be put on when she has recovered.
A spokesman said: ''Lady Thatcher is unable to a
Source: BBC News
Oct 14, 2010
International human rights groups have refused to appear before a Sri Lankan inquiry into the end of the country's civil war, saying the procedure is flawed and lacks credibility.
They say the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC) does not meet international standards.
But the commission, appointed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa, says it is a credible attempt for reconciliation.
Correspondents say the panel has no real mandate to investigate t
Source: BBC News
Oct 14, 2010
Greek police have fired tear gas and charged at workers who had occupied the Acropolis in Athens in a protest over unpaid wages and lay-offs.
TV images showed police chasing the culture ministry workers around the ancient monument.
Dozens of workers had shut down the Acropolis on Wednesday morning, demanding two years of back pay.
They had barricaded themselves inside, padlocked the entrance gates and refused to allow in tourists.
The protester
Source: CS Monitor
Oct 14, 2010
When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tours Lebanon’s border with Israel today, he may pause a moment to consider that Iran owes its existence as a Shiite nation to the ancestors of those living in these rural hilltop villages.
The links between the Shiites of Lebanon and Iran stretch back 500 years. They endure today in the ideological and material relationship between the Islamic Republic and Hezbollah.Iran wasn't always the center of Shiite scholarship
Source: BBC
Oct 13, 2010
A postcard written on the Titanic by a passenger in third class who died along with nine members of her family is expected to fetch up to £15,000 at auction this weekend.
The card was posted at Cobh in County Cork, then known as Queenstown, three days before the Belfast-built luxury liner sank on its maiden voyage in April 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
It will now go under the hammer along with a rare promotional brochure in Danish for the ship which ha
Source: Sify.com
Oct 13, 2010
Adolf Hitler seems to be back in town, with an extremely nervous Germany now preparing to stage the first exhibition dedicated to the Nazi leader this week at Berlin's German Historical Museum with the intention to break taboos that have been in practice since the Fuhrer killed himself in his Berlin bunker in 1945.
According to News.com.au, since WWII, a number of museums have displayed works on Nazi crimes, the Holocaust, slave labour, the murdering doctors, cruel judges and massa
Source: Fox News
Oct 13, 2010
Pornography is often portrayed as one of the ills of today's society, evidence of modern moral decay brought to you by video cameras and broadband access.
As it turns out, modern times have got nothing on the past. Pornography existed long before video or even photography, and many researchers think evolution predisposed humans for visual arousal (It's a lot easier to pass on your genes if the sight of other naked humans turns you on, after all)....
By that standard, th
Source: AOL News
Oct 13, 2010
The accomplishments of the ursine allies of World War II are often overlooked, but not by the city of Edinburgh. They're building a $318,000 monument to honor "Private Wojtek," a 500-pound brown bear that served in the Polish Army in the fight against the Axis before retiring to the Edinburgh zoo.
"Wojtek" translates to "the happy warrior," and the bear's contribution to the Polish military effort was largely noncombative. He was an unofficial mascot fo
Source: NYT
Oct 13, 2010
ROME — The case against Marion True, the former curator of antiquities at the J.Paul Getty Museum, ended abruptly on Wednesday, after a court here ruled that the statute of limitations on her alleged crimes — receiving artifacts stolen from Italy and conspiring to deal in them — had expired.
The trial had dragged on intermittently for five years. Numerous witnesses testified for the prosecution, which argued that Ms. True knowingly bought ancient artifacts of dubious provenance for
Source: NYT
Oct 13, 2010
MOLLET DE VALLÈS, Spain — Belly Meneses Díaz and John Felipe Romero Moreno have a special shelf in their living room. It holds a Spanish flag, war medals and a polished wooden box with the ashes of their youngest son. He was 21 when he was killed in northern Afghanistan earlier this year.
In the larger history of the Afghan war, the death of John Felipe Romero Meneses may be a footnote, but it is a poignant one. Like many soldiers in the Spanish Army — and a number of its casualties
Source: AP
Oct 13, 2010
Egypt's chief archaeologist says the United States will return a number of sarcophagi smuggled out of the country 50 years ago.
Zahi Hawass says U.S. authorities seized the sarcophagi on American soil and will return them to Egypt in the next two weeks. He didn't provide any further details about the antiquities or say what sites they were taken from.
Thousands of antiquities were spirited out of Egypt during the colonial period and afterward by archaeologists, adventu
Source: BBC
Oct 13, 2010
The future of archaeology across the country could be severely compromised according to experts in the West Country.
Archaeologists from Wiltshire and Bristol are amongst those protesting at new restrictions on their freedom to study bones and skulls from ancient graves....
Source: BBC
Oct 13, 2010
An ancient cremation urn has been found by archaeologists surveying a site earmarked for a housing project.
The team from Headland Archaeology believe the object uncovered at Fortrose dates from the Bronze Age.
Developer Tulloch Homes, which has planning consent to build 156 properties on the land, commissioned the survey.
Further excavations will be done under the supervision of Highland Council's archaeology officer....
Source: BBC
Oct 13, 2010
A new project aims to use old Royal Navy logbooks to help build a more accurate picture of how our climate has changed over the last century.
The public are being called upon to re-trace the routes taken by some 280 Royal Navy ships including historic vessels.
We volunteers will transcribe information about weather, and other events, from images of ships' logbooks.
This will help provide invaluable information about the past climate.
The projec
