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Worship Site Predates Zeus

Ancient pottery found at an altar used by ancient Greeks to worship Zeus was actually in use at least a millennium earlier, new archeological data suggest.

The pottery shards were discovered during an excavation last summer near the top of Mt. Lykaion in southern Greece.

©University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Altar of Zeus at Mt. Lykaion. Left to right: Dan Diffendale, University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Arthur Rhon, Wichita State University, and Arvey Basa, University of Arizona.

Info

ASU Research Solves Solar System Quandary

Quick: What's the order of the planets in the solar system? Need a little help? Maybe the following mnemonic rings a bell: "My Very Educated Mother Just Served Up Nine Pizzas." It's useful for remembering the order of the planets today, but it wouldn't have been as useful in the past, and not just because the International Astronomical Union demoted Pluto to "dwarf planet" last year.

The reason this mnemonic wouldn't have worked is because the planets weren't always in the order they are today. Four billion years ago, early in the solar system's evolution, Uranus and Neptune switched places.

©Unknown
"This reminds us that the solar system is a dynamic place," Steve Desch says. "For the first 650 million years of the solar system, Neptune was closer to the sun than Uranus - that's 15 percent of the history of the solar system. It looked completely different than we see it today."

Einstein

Japanese astronaut to throw boomerang in space

A Japanese astronaut plans to throw a boomerang inside a space station to test how it can fly in zero gravity, an official said Wednesday.

Astronaut Takao Doi, 53, is set to travel on a US shuttle in March to the International Space Station, where he will be in charge of construction of a Japanese scientific testing room.

It is believed gravity is needed for a boomerang to fly back to the throwing spot, but no one has tried in zero gravity.

©Unknown
Astronaut Takao Doi

Star

Video: Velikovsky, Hero or Villain? Plasma Cosmology Astronomy


Rocket

Bigfoot on Mars? NASA captures alien figure

Is this the picture that proves that there is life on Mars? And the existence of Bigfoot?

©Unknown
The picture was taken in 2004 when enlarged reveals a mysterious figure

It certainly is - if you believe the current crop of rumours whizzing around cyberspace after the image was captured on the surface of the Red Planet.

The photograph, taken in 2004 by the Mars explorer Spirit, appears to show a human shaped object that looks startingly like previous photographs purporting to have captured Bigfoot.

Comment: ITN News story:




Telescope

Big Bang Cosmology: Going Down a Black Hole?

It must be difficult for young people today to comprehend the wonder with which humankind once regarded space exploration. Most kids have spent their lives soaking up CGI special effects in Hi-Def and surround sound, so a routine Space Shuttle launch in the real world can't seem too impressive. Even worse, Sci-Fi movies with cosmic themes have been almost universally poor since at least the mid-1980's. "Incidental" filmmaking nuances like character development, dialog and psychological truth are eschewed in favor of hyper-kinetic special effects and ultra-violence. Whereas filmmakers Kubrick, Lucas, and Spielberg once made us ponder what it means to be human, Michael Bay makes us wonder WHY human beings exist.

Target

Seismic Images Show Dinosaur-killing Meteor Made Bigger Splash

The most detailed three-dimensional seismic images yet of the Chicxulub crater, a mostly submerged and buried impact crater on the Mexico coast, may modify a theory explaining the extinction of 70 percent of life on Earth 65 million years ago.

The Chicxulub crater was formed when an asteroid struck on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Most scientists agree the impact played a major role in the "KT Extinction Event" that caused the extinction of most life on Earth, including the dinosaurs.

Star

Meteor impacts can have subtle effects

LOWER HUTT, New Zealand -- A New Zealand study suggests meteor impacts with the Earth can produce effects of a more subtle and insidious kind than just catastrophic extinction.

Researchers at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, said the shattering impact of meteors on rocks can produce increased groundwater-rock surface interaction, affecting the quality of groundwater that percolates through the fractured, melted rocks of the impact structure.

Magnify

Chinese archaeologists find 100,000-year-old human skull

An almost complete human skull fossil that could date back 100,000 years was unearthed in Henan last month, Chinese archaeologists announced Tuesday.

©China Daily
Pieces of the ancient human skull fossil are seen in this picture provided by State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

Bulb

Toxic chemicals found in dead Tasmanian devils



©Unknown
Potentially cancer-causing chemicals used as flame retardants have been found in the bodies of Tasmanian devils, suggesting a possible role in a disease that threatens to wipe them out, a report said Tuesday.

Scientists have for years been unable to explain why the animals -- the world's largest marsupial carnivore -- have been afflicted with the disease, which causes facial tumours.

A study in which fat was taken from 16 of the animals, including some with the disease, found high levels of retardant chemicals commonly used in computers and foam in bedding and furniture, The Australian newspaper said.