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Roses

Remembered: The day Aberfan shocked the world 50 years ago

Jamie Bowman
The Rhyl Journal
Fri, 21 Oct 2016 19:26 UTC
Aberfan in 1966
Aberfan in 1966
The Aberfan Disaster of 50 years ago should never have happened, according to a former UNM official.

At 9.15am on Friday morning, a minute's silence was held to remember Aberfan.

Here, Jamie Bowman gets Ted McKay's view of the shocking incident half a century ago...

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Aberfan Disaster.

It started as a normal school day at Pant-glas Junior School but in the five minutes between 9.15 and 9.20 am, tragedy struck when thousands of tons of coal waste burst down the mountainside and engulfed the school.

The tragedy claimed 144 lives, including 116 schoolchildren.
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Archaeology

Australian farmer's dinosaur find may change theory of how dinosaurs spread around the world


RT
Fri, 21 Oct 2016 06:50 UTC
dinosaur discovery australia
© David Mercado / Reuters The discovery sheds new light on how dinosaurs travelled the world.
The discovery of a giant dino skeleton by a farmer in Australia has led to new theories as to how and why they spread around the world. Researchers have theorized that the 15-meter-long sauropod made its way to Australia thanks to global warming.

Savannasaurus elliottorum, named after David Elliott, the sheep farmer who discovered its remains, was unearthed in 2005 in Winton, Queensland, but has taken ten years to study, with the latest research published this week in Scientific Reports.
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Boat

Controversy surrounds artifacts on Azores Islands: Evidence of advanced ancient seafarers?

Tara MacIsaac
Epoch Times
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 10:14 UTC
Holes in rock
© Antoneita CostaMysterious marks found in rocks in the Azores archipelago, Portugal.
The Azores archipelago is about 1,000 miles off the coast of Europe, about a third of the way to North America across the Atlantic. The islands belong to Portugal, and the official historical record has long held that they were uninhabited until Portuguese expeditions colonized them in the 15th century. But a controversial alternative theory is gaining ground.

Some experts, including the president of the Portuguese Association of Archaeological Research, Nuno Ribeiro, have said rock art and the remnants of human-made structures on the islands suggest the Azores were occupied by humans thousands of years ago.

This assertion is controversial because it has been used to support a theory that a trade route existed between the Phoenicians, the Norse, and the New World—long before contact with the New World is conventionally thought to have taken place. We will explore this theory and its connection to the Azores in more detail later.

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Question

How did a chunk of India and Eurasia disappear?

Stephanie Pappas
Live Science
Tue, 11 Oct 2016 07:30 UTC
Earth
© ixpert / Shutterstock.comWhat happened to half of the mass of India and Eurasia?
Half of the mass of Eurasia and India is missing, new research finds, and may have been swallowed up by the Earth's mantle.

If so, that would be a surprise, as geoscientists thought that continental crust — the kind that makes up major landmasses — was too buoyant to dive down into the mantle, the pliable middle layer of the planet upon which the crust rides.

"It used to be thought that the mantle and the crust interacted only in a relatively minor way," study researcher David Rowley, a geoscientist at the University of Chicago, said in a statement. "This work suggests that, at least in certain circumstances, that's not true."

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Archaeology

Ain Ghazal: Studying the earliest farmers

Carl Zimmeroct
The New York Times
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 03:56 UTC
fossil early farmers
© C. Blair/The Ain Ghazal Archaeological ProjectA fossilized skeleton of a human who was buried beneath a floor in a family home in Ain Ghazal, a 10,000-year-old farming village in Jordan.
Beneath a rocky slope in central Jordan lie the remains of a 10,000-year-old village called Ain Ghazal, whose inhabitants lived in stone houses with timber roof beams, the walls and floors gleaming with white plaster.

Ain Ghazal ancient farming figurines
© P. Dorrell and S. Laidlaw/The Ain Ghazal Archaeological Project Two of the sculptures recovered at Ain Ghazal. They likely represent mythical ancestors to whom the plastered skulls were directed.
Hundreds of people living there worshiped in circular shrines and made haunting, wide-eyed sculptures that stood three feet high. They buried their cherished dead under the floors of their houses, decapitating the bodies in order to decorate the skulls.

But as fascinating as this culture was, something else about Ain Ghazal intrigues archaeologists more: It was one of the first farming villages to have emerged after the dawn of agriculture.

Around the settlement, Ain Ghazal farmers raised barley, wheat, chickpeas and lentils. Other villagers would leave for months at a time to herd sheep and goats in the surrounding hills.

Sites like Ain Ghazal provide a glimpse of one of the most important transitions in human history: the moment that people domesticated plants and animals, settled down, and began to produce the kind of society in which most of us live today.

But for all that sites like Ain Ghazal have taught archaeologists, they are still grappling with enormous questions. Who exactly were the first farmers? How did agriculture, a cornerstone of civilization itself, spread to other parts of the world?
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Pyramid

Use of cosmic rays, space particles, reveal two 'secret chambers' in Egypt's Great Pyramid

Rachel Bishop
Mirror
Tue, 18 Oct 2016 08:25 UTC
pyramid cut-away
© ScanPyramids
Two secret chambers have been discovered in Egypt's 4,500-year-old Great Pyramid of Giza. Researchers confirmed they had found the mysterious cavities after scanning the centuries old tomb using revolutionary radiography equipment.

The Scan Pyramids project made the latest discovery after being able to demonstrate the efficiency of non-evasive Muons technology at the Bent Pyramid in Dahshour this May. Last year thermal scanning identified a major anomaly in the Great Pyramid, sparking a debate over whether there was a long-running network of tunnels hidden away inside.

But now the mystery has been answered as the Ministry of Antiquities announced on Thursday that 'two anomalies' were found in the pyramid built under King Khufu. They are now looking to conduct further tests on the 146m-high monument to determine their function, nature and size.

The pyramid, also known as the Pyramid of Khufu, named after the son of Phara oh Snefru, is considered one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It has three known chambers, and like other pyramids in Egypt was intended as a pharaoh's tomb.
pyramid workers muons
© ScanPyramidsMuons emulsion plate setup in Khufus lower chamber.
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Galaxy

Extinction event: Evidence of supernova blast found in fossils

Jelor Gallego
Futurism
Fri, 19 Aug 2016 02:23 UTC
Fossil Ash
© Brocken Inaglory
German scientists have found remnants of a supernova, in the form of iron-60, in fossils left by magnetotactic bacteria. The scientists are also looking at the timing of the supernova, which coincides with an extinction event that effected mollusks.

Fossils are one of the major ways scientists can have windows to what happened in the past. The biology and chemistry of ancient Earth is locked up in these primitive time capsules, giving great insight into what was going on millions of years ago.

Still, no one expected a case of ancient astronomy with the use of fossils. German scientists have found remnants of a supernova encased in the fossilized chains of "magnetofossils," extracted from two Pacific Ocean sediment cores.
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Bug

100-million-year-old 'Frankenstein' wasp unlike any other on Earth

Michael D'Estries
Mother Nature Network
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 15:30 UTC
A. burmanicus
© George Poinar, Jr./Oregon State University
About 100 million years ago during the Cretaceous period, Mother Nature was apparently channeling her inner Frankenstein.

Researchers at Oregon State University have unveiled the preserved remains of an ancient parasitic wasp named Aptenoperissus burmanicus, which has the legs of a grasshopper, the abdomen of a cockroach and the antenna of an ant.

"When I first looked at this insect, I had no idea what it was," professor George Poinar Jr., one of the world's leading experts on life forms found preserved in amber, said in a statement. "You could see it's tough and robust, and could give a painful sting."

As detailed in a paper published in the journal Cretaceous Research , the unusual insect was discovered encased in amber retrieved from China's Hukawng Valley in Myanmar.

Researchers studying the female wasp believe it crawled along the forest floor hunting for insects hidden in crevices and other concealed habitats. When it encountered prey, it would paralyze its victims and lay its eggs. The eggs would then hatch and consume their host alive, much like modern day parasitic wasps do.
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Question

The enduring mystery of Oak Island

Goldco Precious Metals
Value Walk
Sun, 16 Oct 2016 01:12 UTC
Oak Island
© Oak Island Money Pit
There's no shortage of stories when it comes to buried pirate treasure, and at least a few of those tales have turned out to be true. Pirates raided the seas for nearly two centuries, many with tremendous success. Victorious pirates collected a lot of loot and such thievery was how the crew got paid. The problem: Where to store all that treasure? It's not like newly wealthy buccaneers could take their liberated gold and jewels down to the First Pirate Bank & Trust. Just the name Pirate Bank is kind of an oxymoron. One possible solution may be what's today known as the Oak Island Money Pit.

To hide their booty, which was sometimes sizable, victorious pirates would bury it in small caches in lonely spots in the world's oceans. Really successful pirates had so much treasure buried that they needed to mark the locations on cryptic maps or leave signs in those remote places. It seems crazy now, but the world was a very different place in the 1700s. Of course, many times the owners would never return to claim their buried gold, silver and jewels. It's a tough gig, piracy.

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Info

14,500-year-old cave art hailed as 'Iberia's most spectacular'


BBC News
Fri, 14 Oct 2016 19:02 UTC
Iberian Cave Art
© Agence France-Presse This undated handout picture released by Diputacion Foral de Bizkaia on 13 October 2016 shows cave engravings representing horses and goats, in the Armintxe cave in the Basque village of Lekeitio.
Cave art as much as 14,500 years old has been pronounced "the most spectacular and impressive" ever discovered on the Iberian peninsula. About 50 etchings were found in the Basque town of Lekeitio.

They include horses, bison, goats and - in a radical departure from previously discovered Palaeolithic art in the Biscay province - two lions.

Some depictions are also much bigger than those found previously - with one horse about 150cm (4ft 11in) long.

"It is a wonder, a treasure of humanity," senior Biscay official Unai Rementeria said.

He was announcing the discovery, which was made in the Armintxe cave in May and has since been investigated by Biscay experts.

The cave was well-known to locals, said reports, but no-one had until then ventured the 50m inside where this latest 15m-long panel of etchings was found.

Together with two side panels, the depictions comprise some 30 animals along with forms comprising semi-circles and lines - including some "identical" to forms found in the French Pyrenees.

Other similar shared features - including the depictions of lions and the etching technique used - have suggested there could have been links between groups of hunter-gatherers in both areas.The etchings are thought to date from between 12,000 and 14,500 years ago.

The cave will not be opened to the public, both due to its inaccessibility and because of the need to preserve the paintings - but authorities say they will use technology to give the public as good a view of the new finds as possible.

Experts will discuss the finds at a special congress at the end of the month.
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