A section of a fortress constructed during the 1670s has been found in Norway, giving experts a rare look at something previously only seen in sketches. The find is a casemate — a vaulted chamber in a fortress. The space was created by the supports for the outside wall, which at the same time is holding up a 400mm thick layer of timber that served as the floor for a cannon site
Neanderthals were thought to have died out as modern humans arrived in Europe. Now, artefacts found in a cave in Gibraltar reveal that the two groups coexisted for millenia before Neanderthals finally dwindled out of existence
Engineers moved the giant statute of Pharaoh Ramses II from a congested square in downtown Cairo to its new home near the more peaceful Great Pyramids. Contractors moved the more than 3,200-year-old statue from Ramses Square in an effort to save it from exhaust fumes and other environmental hazards that were causing the 83-ton structure to deteriorate
Descendants of extinct mammals such as the giant woolly mammoth might one day walk the Earth again. It isn’t exactly Jurassic Park, but Japanese researchers are looking at the possibility of using sperm from frozen animals to inseminate living relatives.
Researchers at the University of Washington have discovered a possible nonvolatile magnetic semiconductor and are investigating its use for spintronics
, an emerging technology that is concerned with manipulating and controlling the charge, flow and magnetism of electrons. The possibilities for the material cobalt green
, a paint developed by American Revolution era artists, as a spintronics material is exciting. Should the magnetic properties of the paint at room-temperature prove able to reliably control the wild spinning of excited electrons in a processor, not only could the size of processors reduce substantially, but the constant limiting factor, how to keep things cool, could disappear
The Domesday Book has gone online. As one of the earliest public records goes online, anyone with an internet connection will be able to access this important document. Amongst other interesting facts, the BBC is reporting that the Book can still be used today in court for property disputes. In an interesting development, the National Archives are making online searches free, but downloads of data will cost £3.50. Similar launches of historical web sites in the past have struggled to keep up with server loads in their first days and weeks, so it remains to be seen whether the Domesday Book online will be more or less fragile than the parchment originals — via Slashdot
A meteor which crashed into Antarctica probably caused the biggest mass extinction in the Earth’s history and likely spawned the Australian continent, scientists say
This Anzac Day descendants of Turkish soldiers will for the first time be officially allowed to join in the march of veterans. Turkish-Australians whose fathers and grandfathers fought at Gallipoli have been defying RSL policy by marching in the Melbourne parade since 1996. But now they’ve been given official sanction from Victoria’s RSL
Scientists have made one of the most important fossil finds in history: a missing link between fish and land animals, showing how creatures first walked out of the water and on to dry land more than 375m years ago. Palaeontologists have said that the find, a crocodile-like animal called the Tiktaalik roseae and described today in the journal Nature, could become an icon of evolution in action — like Archaeopteryx, the famous fossil that bridged the gap between reptiles and birds
Australia’s screen culture — from Alvin Purple
to home video of Queen Elizabeth’s 1954 royal tour — will be available online from next year. In a collaboration aimed at increasing the Australian public’s knowledge of their audiovisual heritage, more than 1000 clips from film and television programs and radio broadcasts will be available on a web site. Associated scripts, interviews and oral histories will also be available as education material
The keeper of the biggest collection of indigenous Australian art and cultural history is digitising its catalogue in a project designed to help preserve its ageing archives
Scientists in northeastern Ethiopia recently discovered a skull that they think may be evidence of the missing link between Homo erectus and modern man. The hominid cranium — found in two pieces and believed to be between 500,000 and 250,000 years old — comes from a very significant period and is very close to the appearance of the anatomically modern human
, said Sileshi Semaw, director of the Gona Paleoanthropological Research Project in Ethiopia
Online codebreaking enthusiasts working to solve a series of German World War II ciphers have cracked the second of three codes. Thousands of users around the world have joined the M4 Project, using spare computing power to crack the codes — via BBC News
A family of animals known as Diatomyidae thought to have been dead for 11 million years has been discovered in Laos. Fossilised remnants of this group have been found throughout Asia with a distinctive jaw structure and molars. It represents a rare opportunity to compare assumptions derived from the fossil record and an actual living specimen to determine overall accuracy of the techniques involved. This discovery also provides a compelling argument for preservation efforts in Southeast Asia
Australian scientists have uncovered what they believe are the earliest examples of Buddhist literature. Carbon dating of rare manuscripts from a private collection dubbed the Dead Sea scrolls of Buddhism
may reveal the religion’s ancient origins
The Bruichladdich distillery on the Isle of Islay, off Scotland’s west coast, announced it was reviving a centuries-old recipe for whisky so strong that one 17th-century writer feared more than two spoonfuls could be lethal. Risk-taking whisky connoisseurs will have to wait, however — the spirit will not be ready for at least 10 years
Google has announced their pilot program to digitise the entire video content of the National Archives and make it globally accessible for free on Google Video. The history of the world should be universally accessible and this is definitely a great step towards making sure that our history is not lost, and that everyone has equal and easy access towards such information. Google has provided some sample videos from the National Archives, such as the 1969 moon landing
A group of New Zealand school children have found the remains of what is believed to be a 40 million-year-old giant
penguin. The remains were found last month near Kawhia, on the west coast of the North Island, by children looking for fossils for a nearby natural history museum. Bones from the largest ancient giant penguin, found in New Zealand more than 130 years ago, indicate the bird stood about 1.5 metres tall and weighed more than 100 kilograms
Egyptian authorities gave a peek Friday into the first tomb uncovered in the Valley of the Kings since 1922. US archaeologists said they discovered the tomb by accident while working on a nearby site. The tomb, believed to be some 3,000 years old and dating to the 18th Dynasty, does not appear to be that of a pharaoh
Andrew Carol has built a version of the Babbage Difference Engine No 2 out of Lego — via digg
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