For the past eight weeks, the biggest-selling song in Germany has been a cover version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow by a morbidly obese, ukulele-playing Hawaiian named Israel Kamakawiwo’ole. But any new fans hoping to see him perform will be as disappointed as the song’s publisher, who heard the version a few years ago, realised the lyrics were slightly wrong, and asked Leah Bernstein at the Mountain Apple record label if she could ask him to re-record it. Well I’d really love to,
Bernstein replied, but he’s dead
— via redwolf.newsvine.com
Archaeologists from the University of Chile have discovered a 12,000-year-old iron oxide mine in the north of the country — via redwolf.newsvine.com
The fragmentation of tropical rainforests 300 million years ago helped pave the way for the rise of the dinosaurs, a new study suggests — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Nor is Duxbury free of its own oddities. Duxbury does not feature in any of Lovecraft’s fiction; Arkham
is based on Salem, Innsmouth
is based on a combination of Ipswich and Gloucester, and Dunwich
is based on Athol. But Duxbury was no stranger to sea serpents, even in Wiswall’s day. The English writer John Josselyn’s An Account of Two Voyages to New-England (1674) described the 1639 sighting of a sea serpent off Cape Anne, north of Duxbury, which sparked a rash of sea-serpent sightings along the Massachusetts coast, including Duxbury. And in 1857 Henry Thoreau wrote in his journal that Daniel Webster had seen a sea-serpent off the coast of Duxbury — via io9
Genetic testing of villagers in a remote part of China has shown that nearly two thirds of their DNA is of Caucasian origin, lending support to the theory that they may be descended from a lost legion
of Roman soldiers — via cartooncat.newsvine.com
A pistol held by Sean Connery as James Bond in a poster to promote the 1963 film From Russia With Love has sold at auction for £277,250 — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A rare Chinese calligraphy scroll has fetched 308m yuan (£29m; $46m) – the second-highest amount paid for an artwork at auction in China, the state-run Xinhua news agency says — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient Roman bathhouse in Jerusalem’s Old City — via redwolf.newsvine.com
A four-year-old boy from Essex using a metal detector with his father unearthed a gold pendant believed to date from the 16th Century — via redwolf.newsvine.com
When the day finally came for a young John Lydon’s parents to take him home after a year spent lying in a large hospital ward, he had no idea who they were — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Conversation Pit, originally uploaded by Telstar Logistics.
Basement conversation pit
in the house next door to where I grew up; quite literally unchanged since 1974.
New York’s famous City Hall subway station, one of the most gorgeous gems in the world of mass transit, has been closed for decades. Now it can be viewed again by in-the-know riders of the 6 train — via Jalopnik
The family of a soldier who died in the Battle of the Somme 94 years ago has finally received his war medals — via redwolf.newsvine.com
May beer have helped lead to the rise of civilization? It’s a possibility, some archaeologists say. Signs that people went to great lengths to obtain grains despite the hard work needed to make them edible, plus the knowledge that feasts were important community-building gatherings, support the idea that cereal grains were being turned into beer, said archaeologist Brian Hayden at Simon Fraser University in Canada. Beer is sacred stuff in most traditional societies,
said Hayden — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Growing up in Idaho Falls, Idaho was strange enough but I always wondered what was up with this collection of futuristic hippy homes in my neighborhood above Idaho Falls (called Rimrock Estates, in Ammon, ID). The place is overrun with starter castles today, yet these architectural anomalies built sometime in the early 80’s, presumably by the same developer continue to amaze — via New City Movement
A Royal pardon for Harry Breaker
Morant has been refused in a modern-day appeal that is as mysterious as the century-old case that saw the Australian soldier executed — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Peruvian archaeologists have discovered six mummified dogs, all dating from the 15th century and apparently presented as religious offerings, at a major pre-Columbian site just south of Lima — via redwolf.newsvine.com
South Australia is the latest state to make a move towards legislating for same-sex marriage — via redwolf.newsvine.com
Dating back to the 1880s, Antoni Gaudí devoted over a decade of his life to one of Barcelona’s, and the architecture world’s, most prized structures, la Sagrada Família. The cathedral has remained under construction for hundreds of years as debates concerning whether or not its current state is too far from the original vision continually spark controversy. Yet, this Sunday, as the NY Times reported, Pope Benedict XVI visited the cathedral to consecrate the Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. The visit spurred hundreds of workers to prepare the church in an effort to highlight the newest “ latest architectural and artistic features” — via ArchDaily
A German spy photograph of a ruined house in Northamptonshire surrounded by oddly marked fields, has revealed a secret unguessed at by the Luftwaffe cameraman: such important evidence of a lost Tudor garden that the site has been awarded Grade I status by English Heritage, ranking it among the most important gardens in Europe.
The garden’s grass ring marks, shown clearly by the aerial, monochrome, photograph, are 120 metres across and almost certainly mark a Tudor labyrinth tracing in symbolic form the religious faith of its creator – a faith that finally cost the man his family fortune and his son’s life, after the latter was exposed as one of the Gunpowder plotters — via redwolf.newsvine.com
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