Mini Human Species Unearthed

Australian anthropologists have discovered a new human species that could rewrite the history of human evolution. They unearthed the skeleton of what is believed to be a fully-grown female, barely a metre tall, on the Indonesian island of Flores

Ark Of The Covenant In British Museum Basement

On a shelf in a locked basement room underneath the British Museum, are kept 11 wooden tablets; they are covered in purple velvet. And no one among the museum’s staff — including Neil MacGregor, the director — is permitted to enter the room. The tablets — or tabots — are sacred objects in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and are regarded as representing the original Ark of the Covenant, which housed the Ten Commandments and the Orthodox Church has been lobbying for their return — or at least easy access to them — for more than 50 years — via Pagan Prattle

1918 Killer Flu Virus To Be Tested In Lab

University of Washington scientists plan to infect monkeys with a killer flu virus grown from tissue exhumed from victims of the 1918 epidemic. They hope the insight they gain will unravel the mystery of why tens of millions of people worldwide died from the virulent flu strain and lead to development of better vaccines and drugs that may save lives in the future

Elvis Enters Public Domain In UK Next Year

On 1 January 2005, Elvis Presley’s That’s All Right — a 50-year-old tune currently enjoying the #3 chart spot in Great Britain — will enter the public domain. Anyone will be able to release it without paying royalties to the owners of the master or the performer’s heirs. BMG will start losing a significant piece of its catalogue income in Europe. As That’s All Right is being hailed by some as the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll, the implications are that every year after 2005, more recordings that defined the genre will fall into public domain

Beneath Your Feet

When construction workers in Oslo dug a drainage ditch around a church in the Old City district, they uncovered a slew of skeletons little more than a foot below the surface. According to an Aftenposten Norway article, the skeletons likely belong to the former tenants of a Dominican monastery located in the area from 1240 until 1537 — via BoingBoing

Before the Reformation the most blessed resting spots were awarded hierarchically and could be bought. The best plots lay under the holy water that drained off the church roof and dripped onto the ground below… The skeletons also bear witness to medieval times as an age of violence. Many of the bones reveal notches that must have resulted from brutal force

1,000 Year Old Brewery Unearthed

US researchers have unearthed what they say may be the oldest known brewery in the Andes, a pre-Incan plant at least 1000 years old that could produce drinks for hundreds of people at one sitting. The University of Florida said its archaeologists and researchers from the Field Museum in Chicago found the brewery at Cerro Baul, a mountaintop religious centre of the Wari empire that ruled what is now Peru hundreds of years before the Incas

World War One Claims Another Victim

70-year-old Aldo Busato, a retired Italian farmer, died on Saturday when a World War One bomb, part of his collection of military memorabilia, exploded while he was showing it to a friend in his garden

Bucky Gets A Stamp

Richard Buckminster Fuller was always considered to be 50 years ahead of his time. Ever in sync with the zeitgeist, a half century after Fuller received the patent on his famous geodesic dome, the US Postal Service issues a stamp in his honour — via Rogue Sun

World War Two Mines Found Off Spanish Coast

Two mines thought to date from the Second World War were found off the Spanish coast after a swimmer spotted one device nestling on the seabed. Bomb disposal experts cordoned off the beach to deactivate the first mine which measured some 20 inches in diameter

Zeppelin Flies Again

Makers of the revived Zeppelin airship delivered their first helium-filled craft to a commercial user Saturday, a Japanese company that plans to use the 12-seat craft for sightseeing trips and advertising. The granddaughter of the original airship’s inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, was on hand as Japan’s Nippon Airship Corporation took delivery of the 247-foot ship, destined for sightseeing and advertising flights in Japan and a starring role at the 2005 world’s fair in the city of Aichi

19th Century News Coming Online

Approximately a million news stories from the 19th century are going online. The project will cost roughly £$2 million and include 100 years of news and images from publications that are no longer copyright protected, and currently only available at the Newspaper Library in Colindale, North London. 52,000 newspapers and magazines will be included and the project should take 18 months to complete

Inventor Of Walkman Wins Millions From Sony

The German inventor who pioneered the technology behind the Sony Walkman has won a multimillion-pound payout nearly 30 years after dreaming up his invention. Andreas Pavel’s original 1970s concept of the stereobelt revolutionised portable listening and Sony’s version — the Walkman — became a global hit. Now the 57-year-old stereo enthusiast, who works in Milan, is threatening to use his payout to sue Apple Computer, whose iPod portable music player is the digital successor to the Walkman. He is believed to be considering cases in Italy and Canada, where his patents were filed later and may still be valid

Colossus Has Been Rebuilt

In celebration of D-Day, Colossus, one of the earliest electronic code-breaking machines, has been rebuilt after ten years of effort by computer conservationists. Colossus was used to break the Lorenz cipher. Remarkably, the use of parallel processing (five tape channels) and short gate delay time (1.2µs) allows the Colossus to match the speed of a modern PC