NASA announced that its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) — which has been orbiting the moon since 2009 — has captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 sites on the moon. The images show tracks from the lunar rover used in the last Apollo mission, Apollo 17, as well as the last footprints left on the moon by astronauts in the year 1972 — via redwolf.newsvine.com
British archaeologists have discovered a missing tunnel at one of the most infamous German prison camp of the Second World War and unearthed a wealth of escapers’ tools and equipment sealed underground.
The tunnel, named George, was shut down in 1945, when the Prisoners of War of Stalag Luft III were led off at gunpoint by their Nazi guards as the advancing Red Army closed in.
Its location at the camp, immortalised in the Hollywood blockbuster The Great Escape starring Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and Donald Pleasance, remained a mystery until experts arrived in August and spent three weeks excavating the relics — via redwolf.newsvine.com
One hallmark of Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, was his stone tools, an advanced technology reflecting a good deal of forethought and dexterity. Up to now, however, scientists have been unable to pin a firm date on the earliest known evidence of his stone tool-making.
A new geological study, being reported Thursday in the journal Nature, showed that tools from a site near Lake Turkana in Kenya were made about 1.76 million years ago, the earliest of their ilk found so far. Previous dates were estimates ranging from 1.4 million to 1.6 million years ago — via redwolf.newsvine.com
De Lackner DH-4 Heli-Vector
, 1956 — via x planes
The price makes this out of reach for us mere mortals, but this 1930s Art Deco nine bedroom Marylebone Town House in Harley Street, London, W1, really is like walking back in history. Trust me, this is a stunning period interior, largely untouched in 80 or so years.
Not that the minor details of changing the layout should affect you or I. The asking price of £6,950,000 makes that only applicable to multi-millionaires or Lotto winners with a love of period architecture. If that’s you, the agent would to show you around — via WowHaus
The price of cool? $1.375 million.
That’s what it took for one lucky bidder to take home legendary actor and personality Steve McQueen’s 1970 Porsche 911S. Immortalised in the film Le Mans, the 911S quickly became one of McQueen’s favourite and best-known cars.
The staggering sum, among the highest ever paid for a car from Zuffenhausen, was realized October 19 at RM Auctions’ event in Monterey, California — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This is a story about how an economist and his buddies tricked the people of Brazil into saving the country from rampant inflation. They had a crazy, unlikely plan, and it worked.
Twenty years ago, Brazil’s inflation rate hit 80 percent per month. At that rate, if eggs cost $1 one day, they’ll cost $2 a month later. If it keeps up for a year, they’ll cost $1,000.
In practice, this meant stores had to change their prices every day. The guy in the grocery store would walk the aisles putting new price stickers on the food. Shoppers would run ahead of him, so they could buy their food at the previous day’s price — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The hack of a commercially available insulin pump that diabetics can control wirelessly has attracted the attention of US lawmakers who oversee the safety of the nation’s airwaves.
In a letter drafted earlier this week, US Representatives Anna Eshoo and Edward Markey asked members of the Government Accountability Office to ensure that wireless-enabled medical devices will not cause harmful interference to other equipment
and are safe, reliable, and secure
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
A woman sold
in a black market adoption has been reunited with her long lost mother 34 years after she was snatched from her arms.
Sara Hudson and her birth mother, Kathleen Rhodes, were separated in a Long Island hospital parking lot by late Brooklyn lawyer and rabbi Seymour Fenichel — the ringleader of an illegal adoption scam — in 1976.
At a gas station nearby, the newborn was handed over to an older Manhattan woman desperate for a child.
After tracking her birth mother on Facebook, Mrs Hudson and her mother embraced for the first time since she was born last week — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Opponents of same sex marriage would like everyone to think that the desire for gays and lesbians to marry their partners is a very recent phenomenon. A while ago, when I was reading through 19th century Arizona newspapers, I came across a cryptic mention of a same sex marriage that took place in 1877 in Nevada. Further research revealed the fascinating life story of Sarah Maud Pollard, who, as Samuel M Pollard, married in Tuscarora, Elko County, Nevada Territory to Marancy Hughes on 29 September 1877. An article I prepared on Pollard has just appeared in American Ancestors magazine, published by the New England Historic Genealogical Society. A condensed version of Pollard’s life story is presented here — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Good news for aspiring 007s: a whole raft of spy gear, including luxury watches, desert warfare camouflage jackets and the odd armoured vehicle is now available at knockdown prices as the Ministry of Defence tries to offload non-vital equipment and plug a hole in its budget.
A range of expensive watches – some originally costing up to £5,000 – as well as an array of other items, from ships to Scottish military kilts, have been put on sale as the Mod tries to recoup a little money — via redwolf.newsvine.com
For around a 150 years, tourists to Edinburgh have taken time out of their trip to visit the bronze statue of Greyfriars Bobby, the Skye Terrier reputed to have kept a 14 year vigil at his master’s graveside.
But now a historian at Cardiff University believes he has uncovered evidence that the legend is nothing but a shaggy dog tale — via redwolf.newsvine.com
In March 1938, a Church of England vicar set out to save the lives of hundreds of desperate Austrian Jews facing persecution by the Nazis by baptising them as Christians, to help them flee the country.
The controversial work of the Reverend Hugh Grimes — which began the day after Nazi Germany annexed Austria — is little recognised yet it led to what could be called Britain’s own Schindler’s list
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Nancy Wake, the French Resistance fighter who became Australia’s most decorated World War II heroine, has died in a London hospital at the age of 98.
Born in New Zealand and raised in Sydney, Ms Wake was nicknamed The White Mouse
by the Gestapo because she was so hard to capture.
She is regarded as a heroine in France, which decorated her with its highest honour, the Legion d’Honneur, as well as three Croix de Guerre and a French Resistance Medal — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Footage from Alfred Hitchcock’s first film has been uncovered in New Zealand.
The British director was 24 when 1923 silent film, The White Shadow, was made.
The three reels were found among some unidentified American nitrate prints, which were left at the New Zealand Film Archive in 1989 — via redwolf.newsvine.com
If you listen carefully just above this unassuming grate you can hear the ripple and splash of flowing water. This is the sound of the River Fleet, London’s largest subterranean river. Forced underground by the city’s burgeoning populace the river still flows from its source to its mouth where it joins London’s main waterway, the Thames. Yet what lies beneath?
Below the ground there is a remarkable network of tunnels and chambers, put in to place by Victorian engineers, the final step in a process which took centuries. For over a thousand years there had been a shipping dock at the mouth of the river – its name comes from the Anglo-Saxon fleot which means a tidal inlet. Yet it was not destined to persevere as a river in its own right — via Kuriositas
A rare World War II Victoria Cross has sold at auction in Melbourne for more than $1 million.
The medal was won by Private Ted Kenna while fighting the Japanese in New Guinea in 1945.
Mr Kenna single-handedly took out a Japanese machine gun post — via redwolf.newsvine.com
More than 3,000 Roman coins have been discovered in a field, it has emerged.
The hoard of copper alloy coins, dating from the 3rd Century, was unearthed in Montgomery, Powys, several weeks ago.
About 900 were found by a member of a Welshpool metal detecting club, with the rest of the discovery made with help from archaeologists — via redwolf.newsvine.com
This unique archaeological site is one of the best examples — along with Machu Picchu — of what might be called extreme Inca landscaping. Three enormous pits, each with beautifully curved sides that staircase down like the interiors of titanic flowerpots, have been carved out of the earth to depths of up to 100 feet and more. Air temperatures between the top and bottom layers can differ by more than 20 degrees, which has led some researchers to theorize that Moray was an Inca agricultural site where experiments on crops were conducted — via National Geographic
Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles, a study suggests.
Scientists monitored volunteers fitted with 15th Century replica armour as they walked and ran on treadmills.
They found that the subjects used high levels of energy, bore immense weight on their legs and suffered from restricted breathing — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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