“JESUS CAMP” Film Highlights Breeding Ground for Militant Christian Children
SOURCE: Associated Press – Nov 2006

MANDAN, N.D. – A documentary is being shown in theaters across America about the real agenda behind a so called summer camp for Christian children. The featured subject is Rev. Becky Fischer who runs a children's summer camp that’s not about making crafts, roasting marshmallows or telling scary stories around the campfire. At the ‘Kids on Fire’ summer camp at Devils Lake, North Dakota, it’s not about sunshine and good health brought about by softball and playing tag, it's about "taking back America for Christ." As Fischer said in an interview, "I want to see young people who are as committed to the cause of Jesus Christ as the young people are to the cause of Islam." F.I.R.E stands for (Families Ignited for Revival & Evangelism).

At this center for indoctrination, children as young as five years old squirm in spiritual ecstasy, speak in tongues, sob for salvation and dance in wild abandon with their faces painted in camouflage as part of "God's army". One child in the film stated that if people don’t belong to the evangelism movement they are going to a “Dead Church” where they all sit in the pews staring mindlessly into space as though they might as well be dead themselves. Her insinuation being, ‘one must become fanatical about Jesus or one might as well not worship’. Most of the children who attend this camp are home schooled because their parents don’t want their children being exposed to the “sick world” and the “sick” public school system. The term “sick” is used to describe anything taught other than fundamentalist Christian values.

The leader of this Summer Camp is Rev. Becky Fischer and is a 55-year-old former art teacher and sign business operator. She is an animated, outspoken woman who acts as a drill instructor for her religious recruits at the summer camp where children have their brains washed of all the secular dirtiness relating to the non-Christian world. She uses stern lectures, and props such as globs of goo to show what impure thoughts do to a child's brain. One example of impure thoughts is fiction and fantasy heroes. In the Christian world "Harry Potter would have been put to death," she tells the children at one point. "Warlocks are the enemy of God!" In another, teary-eyed children pray to a life-size cutout of President Bush and ask God to place "righteous judges" on the U.S. Supreme Court. Towards the end of the film, children are shown at an anti-abortion rally in Washington, D.C., their lips sealed with red tape to protest their position that children don’t have a voice in abortion rights.

The Rev. Becky Fischer is single and has no children -- she said she couldn't stand baby-sitting as a teen. She commented on the reaction to her indoctrination camp featured in this documentary by saying "It's not just wackos ripping me for child abuse -- I'm taking hits from the Christian community."

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Pastor Leaves Mega Church After Admitting Drug Use and Gay Sex
SOURCE: Denver Post - Nov 2006

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO - Ted Haggard, the beleaguered pastor of one of the nation's most influential evangelical churches, was fired after admitting "sexually immoral conduct." Haggard, founder and leader of the 14,000-member New Life Church, admitted publicly that he had purchased methamphetamine and engaged in sexual immorality outside marriage. This admission triggered his removal. Citing the bylaws of the 14,000-member church Haggard started 26 years ago in his home; the overseers said his conduct required them to remove him from his job.
Haggard, 50, was a weekly consultant to the born again Bush White House, the author of several books, and, until he stepped down, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents more than 30 million worshipers. Haggard has been a vocal supporter of Amendment 43, which would add to the Colorado state constitution the definition of marriage as being strictly between a man and a woman.

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Home Owners Association Bans Christmas Wreath with Peace Sign
SOURCE: Associated Press – Nov 2006

DENVER, COLORADO – As though Denver area right wing Christian extremists weren’t suffering enough from the national scandal created by the hypocritical mega-church leader Ted Haggard, a homeowners association in southwestern Colorado has threatened to fine a resident $25 a day until she removes a Christmas wreath with a peace sign that some say is an anti-Iraq war protest or a symbol of Satan. Some residents who have complained have children serving in Iraq, said Bob Kearns, president of the Loma Linda Homeowners Association in Pagosa Springs. He said some residents have also believed it was a symbol of Satan. Three or four residents complained, he said.

"Somebody could put up signs that say drop bombs on Iraq. If you let one go up you have to let them all go up," he said in a telephone interview Sunday.

Lisa Jensen said she wasn't thinking of the war when she hung the wreath. She said, "Peace is way bigger than not being at war. This is a spiritual thing." Jensen, a past association president, calculates the fines will cost her about $1,000, and doubts they will be able to make her pay. But she said she's not going to take it down until after Christmas.

The association has sent a letter to her saying that residents were offended by the sign and the board "will not allow signs, flags etc. that can be considered divisive." Kearns ordered the committee to require Jensen to remove the wreath, but members refused after concluding that it was merely a seasonal symbol that didn't say anything. Kearns fired all five committee members.

“My goodness” comments William Seven, “Imagine trying to associate good will and peace on earth with the Christmas holiday!!”

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Dickson Mounds to Host Archaeology Event Saturday
SOURCE: Peoria Journal Star – SEP 2006

Lewistown, Illinois- Dickson Mounds Museum will host its Annual Archaeology Awareness Month event on Sunday September 17, 2006 from 1 to 4 p.m. A new display, "Archaeological Sites in Illinois." celebrates 100 years of preservation of archaeological sites accessible to the public.

At 2 p.m., Director Dr. Michael Wiant will give a lecture in the auditorium on the "Archaeological Investigations of Gregory Perino." At 3 p.m., a new documentary will be shown on the on the history of the Illinois tribes. The documentary was written, produced and directed by historian Dan Hechenberger of Mascoutah. Hechneberger will be available afterward to talk about the film and the tribes.

Dickson Mounds is between Lewistown and Havana off Illinois Routes 78 and 97. The museum is open free to the public from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day. For more information call 547_3721 or TTY (217) 782-9175 or visit the museum's Web site at http://museum.state.il.us/ismsites/dickson/

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NO BONES ABOUT IT
SOURCE: Associated Press - OCT 2006

Hardly an hour goes by without Thomas Serafin or one of his cyber-sleuths checking what eBay has to offer. They're not hunting for bargains and never place a bid. Their interest is bone shards, bits of wizened flesh and a contemporary twist on the sacred and the profane: How the ancient trade in the most coveted religious relics has moved into the global flea market of online bidding.

"You can find bone fragments supposedly from St. Augustine being hawked on the Internet along with trinkets and antiques. There is something very wrong here," said Serafin, a Catholic activist based in Los Angeles, who has led an expanding campaign since the late 1990s to block the online sale of objects purported to contain the remains of Christian saints. Last month, Serafin's group, the International Crusade for Holy Relics, opened a new front that's truly worthy of a David and Goliath metaphor: a call to boycott eBay. It seeks to pressure the world's largest online auction site to close alleged loopholes used to bypass its ban on allowing bids for human remains.

A relic is an object, especially a piece of the body or a personal item of someone of religious significance, carefully preserved with an air of veneration as a tangible memorial. The word relic comes from the Latin reliquiae ('remains'). A reliquary is a shrine that houses one or more relics. Many tales of miracles and other marvels were attributed to relics beginning in the early centuries of the church; many of these became especially popular during the Middle Ages.

There are also many relics attributed to Jesus, perhaps most famously the Shroud of Turin, which is claimed to be the burial shroud of Jesus, although this is disputed. Pieces of the True Cross were one of the most highly sought after such relics; many churches claimed to possess a piece of it.The abbey church of Coulombs in France, among several others, claims to possess the relic of Jesus' circumcision — the Holy Prepuce.

Interest in religious patrimony of all types _ from icons to stained glass _ has soared in recent years, along with the blockbuster novel "The Da Vinci Code," the Christian-themed "Left Behind" series and major museum exhibits devoted to art and spirituality. At the same time, a flood of ecclesiastical items has entered mainstream antiquarian markets from once-flourishing churches that were closed because of shrinking congregations or population shifts away from older city neighborhoods.

But the sale of so-called "first-class relics" _ bone, flesh, hair, nails and fragments of other body parts _ remains a murky subculture, one that's increasingly shifting from the back rooms of dealers' shops to the Web's worldwide mall. Some recent offerings on eBay include "the air" that Christ breathed, the wing of the Holy Spirit and "the hand" of St. Stephen.
Most churches with centuries-old traditions in the display and veneration of relics, including the Roman Catholic and Orthodox, prohibit the sale of any objects believed to hold body parts.

Many now make a point of saying that the reliquary, or container, is for sale and the actual relic is a "gift." There are even conflicting linguistic signals. On Monday, a seller posted a relic of St. Eymard, a 19th century French priest, which was described as "ex ossibus," Latin for "from the bones." But the fuller text says the relic "does not contain any human parts."

In late October, Serafin's group protested what they considered an "ex ossibus" relic of the 19th century St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. The sale went ahead, starting at $25. Twenty-seven bids later, an anonymous buyer picked it up for $565, plus $12 shipping.

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BIBLE COLLECTOR RECRUITS PUBLIC
SOURCE: Associated Press – AUG 2006

The antique Bible market is hot. But if you don't have the money to buy a first edition King James Version you still can get your hands on one at the Christian Heritage Museum, whose owner invites visitors to touch and purchase some of the 20,000 pieces in his collection.

Gene S. Albert Jr. isn't selling his prized King James first edition, first issue, printed in 1611. The book, also known as a "he" Bible for a masculine pronoun in Ruth 3:15 that was changed to "she" in later versions, sits atop a bookcase in the loft of the climate-controlled barn near Hagerstown that houses his museum. On a recent tour, Albert picked up the King James first edition and encouraged a guest to touch a slightly yellowed page, its ornate letters and decorations still clearly legible after 395 years. The paper felt stiff and a little rough, like the cotton rags from which it was made.

Collecting and displaying such pieces is a passion for Albert, a 54-year-old homebuilder, religious printmaker and graduate of Liberty Theological Seminary at Liberty University. But Albert, who's been collecting for 25 years, said he wants regular people and not just scholars to have access to the collection, hoping that viewing the artifacts will inspire them to accept Christ as their savior.

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Dig Unearths Evidence of Neolithic Partying
SOURCE: Salisbury Journal – SEP 2006

Stonehenge visitors had the opportunity to get a glimpse of what life was like in Britain more than 4,000 years ago over the bank holiday weekend.

A team of 100 archaeologists, from various universities around Britain, along with Wessex Archaeology, has been carrying out excavations as part of the seven-year Riverside Project at Woodhenge, Durrington Walls and Stonehenge Cursus to find out more about the sites and their links with Stonehenge in the 26th Century BC. Over the weekend the public was invited to attend excavation open days which included tours of the site, the opportunity to meet the archaeologists, and re-enactments of life 4,000 years ago. The open days were a great success with over 2,000 people turning up to see what the team had unearthed.

The group of archaeologists has been excavating the sites for two weeks already and will continue to look for new finds until September 17. Professor of archaeology at Sheffield University Mike Parker- Pearson is leading the dig: "I think our most exciting discovery is the ceremonial avenue which leads from Durrington Walls to the river.

"We excavated some of it last year, but we've finally uncovered it and it's much bigger than we thought," he said.
The road, which formed an avenue aligned on the Midsummer Solstice sunset, suggested that Durrington Walls and Woodhenge were connected to Stonehenge by their avenues and the river Avon. Mike added: "The avenue is 30 metres across - about as big as a modern dual carriageway."

The team has now found remains of five Neolithic houses at Durrington Walls, one of which is the first ever seen with a perfectly preserved floor. The discoveries they have made so far suggest that Durrington Walls was the site of feasting and partying and Stonehenge was a side chapel for the ancestors. They have also found a stone monument that is a symbol of a house, called a cove, at Woodhenge that was missed in an excavation in 1926.
After the success of the first open days, the project will be having another open weekend on September 9 and 10 and everyone is welcome to visit the sites on these days to learn more about the excavations.

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Archaeology Society Sponsors Program On Earthen Enclosures
SOURCE: Times Union Indiana – AUG 2006

The Kosciusko County Archaeology Society is sponsoring Dr. Robert McCullough, of IPFW, who will speak Tuesday about the investigation of late prehistoric earthen enclosures in Indiana.
McCullough has been involved in several Indiana artifact digs in the Kosciusko County area. The society welcomes new members. Annual dues are $15 for individuals or $25 per family. The group meets the second Saturday of each month at 8:30 a.m. in the city hall, 302 Market St., Warsaw.

“We welcome all ages interested in gaining knowledge about prehistoric Indians and mastodons that lived here before us,” said Bill Wilson, the society’s president. The society’s goal is to physically search for, research, record and preserve records of prehistoric animal and human activity in Kosciusko County.

Projects include: • Researching, surveying and recording the location of all known sites where mammoth or mastodon remains may have been discovered. • Researching and recording early Indiana villages or campsite locations. Limit the work to the years prior to the government giving Indians land sections for their use since this information is fairly well documented. • Searching for evidence of Paleolithic man’s activity in Kosciusko County by means of surveys to locate Paleolithic point types such as Clovis, Cumberland, Debert, Dalton and the like. Record location of verifiable finds. • Create a map of historic Indiana trails in the county by using records of the first county survey, combined with current topographical maps. • Recording the location of Indiana burial mounds and other known burials from earlier excavations and records. • Conduct field surveys of sites for potential excavation.

The Archeology Society has an exhibit of artifacts on display in the library through the September.
For more information, write the Society at P.O. Box 1071, Warsaw IN 46581, or call 574-491-2034 or 574-457-4261.

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Zealots Attack Dig Site
SOURCE: Biblical Archaeology Review - SEP 2006

The only direct damage to an Israeli archaeological site this past summer came not from Hezbollah rockets, but from some extremist ultra-orthodox Jews. (By no means are all ultra-orthodox Jews extremists.)
On June 29, members of Atra Kadisha, known for their violence at archaeological sites, visited the excavation at Bethsaida, north of the Sea of Galilee, and entered the area closed to visitors where archaeologists were excavating. They demanded that all excavation be stopped because the site "was a Jewish cemetery of our forefathers." Dig director Rami Arav asked them to leave, but they did so only when Arav recruited the assistance of a scantily clad female volunteer to approach them. As they left, they threatened reprisal: "Let's see how you will kick out fifity of us."
The next morning at 5:30 a.m. five vans arrived with black-coated thugs armed with knives. They broke down the fences on the site, entered the areas being excavated, vandalized the excavation equipment and trampled the freshly-dug areas, destroying walls, pushing down boulders, and using their knives to cut the ropes and excavation tarpaulins. For good measure, they pulled down signage. Within half an hour, the police arrived. They made no arrests, took no names, but simply persuaded the thugs to leave.
"I have no idea why they came to Bethsaida," said Arav. There are no tombs at the site—Jewish or otherwise.
Efforts to reach Rabbi David Schmidl, the leader of Atra Kadisha, for comment were unsuccessful.

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Researcher Claims Fresh Evidence of Shroud of Turin's Authenticity
SOURCE: Catholic News - SEP 2006

In a new book, The Shroud Story, Sydney researcher and author, Brendan Whiting, says that the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin is supported by the most recent findings, according to a Catholic Weekly report. Mr. Whiting also claims the mainstream media is ignoring what he is calling “new scientific evidence which proves that the Shroud of Turin dates from the time of Christ”, not the Middle Ages as previous carbon dating suggests.

Previous carbon dating tests of the linen cloth, which some believe to have been the burial shroud of Jesus, suggested it was from the 14th century, at time when religious relics were big business for the unscrupulous seller and a false sense of pride to the unwitting buyer. Mr. Whiting's book claims the earlier testing was done on samples chemically different to the rest of the cloth - and in fact were actually remnants of invisible mending carried out in the Middles Ages.

The first carbon dating was carried out in three independent laboratories in 1988. The results were used by skeptics and the mainstream press to label the shroud a fake and a fraud created in the Middle Ages.

"In 2005 the corner of the cloth from which the test sample had been taken was proved to be totally different in chemical composition from the main part of the cloth. It was found to contain cotton threads that were woven in the edge of the original cloth during invisible-mending in the Middle Ages, so causing the dating of the shroud to be younger than its true age," said Whiting.

Mr. Whiting's book lists the accumulated findings by an international group of 24 scientists that the Shroud of Turin is the surviving evidence of the crucified Christ. Their studies of the cloth's body-image formation concluded: "the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth from the dead cannot be rejected on scientific ground".

He says this information means that there is now no scientific evidence supporting any argument against the shroud, now housed in Turin's cathedral, being 2000 years old.

NOTE: What Mr. Whiting has failed to point out is that there is no evidence whatsoever to support the supposition that the shroud, no matter how old it may be, is in any way connected to the individual known as the crucified Christ. Additionally, the supposed scientific investigation much be considered biased if such examinations were sanctioned and funded by the Vatican or any other religious based organization.

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Rock Art Scorched In Fires
SOURCE: AP – AUG 2006

Priceless art dating from the Stone Age has been damaged in forest fires, some deliberately set, in north western Spain. Color paintings and carvings on rocks, known as petroglyphs, of wildlife and geometric patterns dating back 4,000 years, have been charred and blackened in fires in Campo Lameiro and Cotobade in north western Galicia, local government spokeswoman Iria Mendez said. It is too early to determine if some of the art, considered national treasures, have been damaged beyond repair, Ms Mendez said.

The scorching of the priceless rock art comes as Spanish officials say 20 people have been arrested on suspicion of arson as more than 100 fires rage out of control across north-west Spain and neighboring Portugal.

Interior Minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba says the fires appear to have been strategically planned with evil intentions. The arrests include a 90-year-old man and part time Spanish fire fighter.

The 31-year-old fire fighter was arrested on suspicion of starting three fires near the Galician town of Malpica in late July and investigators want to know if he was also behind other fires.

Mr Rubalcaba said he suspected a "ruthless gang" was behind some of the more than 100 fires burning in Galicia, one of Spain's most forested regions. Authorities say 144 fires fanned by winds and drought have been counted of which only 35 are under control despite the use of unprecedented resources including more than six thousand fire fighters, 700 vehicles and 60 aircraft.

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STAR BRIGHTENS SWAN CONSTELLATION
SOURCE: Denver Post - Aug 2006

"The Northern Cross (Cygnus) has an extra star in it this month," says photographer Jimmy Westlake of Stagecoach, Colorado. The long period variable star (Chi Cygni) overshot its apparent magnitude of 5.2 and is hovering around magnitude 3.8 which is the brightest it has been for 148 years.It is an extra star in the long neck of the SWAN asterism. Go out and see this very visible phenomenon out under the dark skies before it fades into just a memory.

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TENTH PLANET?
SOURCE: USA TODAY - AUG 2006

What IS a planet?! Xena’s discovery has resparked a controversy that is not new. Nearly 2,500 astronomers from 75 nations, members of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has gathered in Prague, and will vote on a new proposal Thursday, August 24th. The seven-member Planet Definition Committee headed by Ekers, consisting of historians[?!] and astronomers, has been trying to determine a new definition of the concept “planet.”Here it is in a nutshell: Every round object orbiting the sun is a planet, unless it orbits another planet. But there is a big caveat: If the center of gravity, called the barycenter, is outside the larger object, then the smaller object is a planet. That wording elevates Pluto's moon Charon to planethood, an idea some astronomers have criticized. Word has it the astronomers are split 50/50, but a cnn.com poll shows the CNN public is pro-Pluto three to one.

Late breaking news 8-21: Over the past few days, two rival definitions of the term "planet" have been put forward by astronomers gathered in Prague at a meeting of the International Astronomical Union.

The first definition would potentially give our solar system hundreds of planets. The second would require a planet to dominate its neighbourhood and would throw out all the distant iceballs beyond Neptune, including little Pluto, and leave only eight planets!

Xena discoverer Mike Brown says, "I just read the new [2nd] proposal and I liked it enough to ask them to sign my name to it, too. It's really the only reasonable scientific definition around." Previously he said “That committee's definition is an effort to combine science and culture, and it doesn't do either."

BREAKING NEWS!!!

Capping years of intense debate, astronomers resolved Thursday to demote Pluto in a wholesale redefinition of planethood that is being billed as a victory of scientific reasoning over historic and cultural influences. But the decision is already being hotly debated.

Officially, Pluto is no longer a planet. "Pluto is dead," said Mike Brown, a planetary scientist at the California Institute of Technology who spoke with reporters via a teleconference while monitoring the vote. The decision also means a Pluto-sized object that Brown discovered will not be called a planet.

"Pluto is not a planet," Brown said. "There are finally, officially, eight planets in the solar system." The vote involved just 424 astronomers who remained for the last day of a meeting of the International Astronomical Union in Prague.

"I'm embarrassed for astronomy. Less than 5 percent of the world's astronomers voted," said Alan Stern, leader of NASA's New Horizons mission to Pluto and a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.

"This definition stinks, for technical reasons," Stern told Space.com. He expects the astronomy community to overturn the decision. Other astronomers criticized the definition as ambiguous.

The resolution - The decision establishes three main categories of objects in our solar system. Planets: The eight worlds starting with Mercury and moving out to Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Dwarf planets: Pluto and any other round object that "has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, and is not a satellite."

Small solar system bodies: All other objects orbiting the sun. Pluto and its moon Charon, which would both have been planets under the initial definition proposed Aug. 16, now get demoted because they are part of a sea of other objects that occupy the same region of space. Earth and the other eight large planets have, on the other hand, cleared broad swaths of space of any other large objects.

"Pluto is a dwarf planet by the ... definition and is recognized as the prototype of a new category of trans-Neptunian objects," states the approved resolution. Dwarf planets are not planets under the definition, however.

"There will be hundreds of dwarf planets," Brown predicted. He has already found dozens that fit the category. Contentious logic - The vote came after eight days of contentious debate that involved four separate proposals at the group's meeting in Prague.

Years of debate - Astronomers have argued since the late 1990s on whether to demote Pluto. Public support for Pluto has weighed heavily on the debate. Today's vote comes after a two-year effort by the IAU to develop a definition. An initial committee of astronomers failed for a year to do so, leading to the formation of the second committee whose proposed definition was then redefined for Thursday's vote.

Astronomers at the IAU meeting debated the proposals right up to the moment of the vote. Caltech's Mike Brown loses out in one sense. The Pluto-sized object his team found, called 2003 UB313, will now be termed a dwarf planet.

"As of today I have no longer discovered a planet," he said. But Brown called the result scientifically a good decision. "The public is not going to be excited by the fact that Pluto has been kicked out," Brown said. "But it's the right thing to do."

Textbooks and classroom charts will, of course, have to be revised."For astronomers, this doesn't matter one bit. We'll go out and do exactly what we did," Brown said. "For teaching this is a very interesting moment. I think you can describe science much better now" by explaining why Pluto was once thought to be a planet and why it isn't now. "I'm actually very excited."

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HOBBIT BONES ARE HUMAN
SOURCE: UK Telegraph - Aug 2006

The row over whether 3ft-tall "Hobbits" once walked the Earth takes a new twist today with a claim that they were actually pygmies and not a new species of human.

Prof Mike Morwood, of the University of New England, in Armidale, Australia, made headlines worldwide when he and his team announced the discovery of 18,000-year-old remains of Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores.

The hominid, nicknamed the Hobbit after the diminutive people in JRR Tolkein's Lord Of The Rings, was thought to be an entirely new species of human, with a brain about the size of a chimpanzee's.

But today a joint Indonesian, Australian and American team publishes the most detailed critique to date, arguing that the skeletal remains found in Liang Bua Cave on Flores do not represent a new species as claimed two years ago, but some of the ancestors of modern human pygmies who live on the island today.
Prof Teuku Jacob, of Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia, who became embroiled in a dispute over whether he was holding on to the Hobbit bones after the initial discovery, claims that there are four lines of evidence where the 2004 evaluation is wrong. He reports today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences with colleagues.

Geographically, Flores had at least two migrations of ancient pygmy elephants from nearby islands, making it highly unlikely that ancestral humans arrived only once and remained in isolation - a key prerequisite for a dwarf variety to evolve.

Also, the island was not large enough to have supported isolated hunter-gatherers with a population adequate enough to maintain genetic diversity for long-term survival, the team says. The Liang Bua skeletons' structures also appear to fall within the range of Homo sapiens variation, though are of small stature.
The only known skull and skeleton of the Hobbit had many anatomical features found in the Rampasasa pygmies still living on the island. But they do show signs of a developmental abnormality, having an unusually small braincase.

The researchers conclude that the Hobbit was not a normal member of a new species, but an abnormal member of our own. But a member of the team that announced the Hobbit, Prof Richard "Bert" Roberts of the University of Wollongong, said: "They continue to be highly selective in their choice of 'supporting' data for H. floresiensis not being a new species."
He added that Prof Jacob and his team had "chosen to ignore" a "far more thorough" paper published last month in the Journal of Human Evolution that recognized that H. floresiensis was a new species.

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GLOBAL WARMING COVER-UP

SOURCE: USA TODAY - AUG 2006

One of humanities potentially biggest mistakes is covering up the real threat and existence of global warming, a new study suggests.

Scripps Institution of Oceanography measurements show that in less than half a century the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased about 20%, to levels unseen for at least 800,000 years (and likely much longer), largely as a byproduct of industrial activity.

The Earth naturally produces enough carbon dioxide and methane on its own to warm the atmosphere about 50 degrees more than it would be without them. But the added boost from human activities seems likely to raise global average atmospheric temperatures roughly three to nine degrees worldwide by 2100, according to a 2001 international climate panel report. Heat waves, shifting farm regions and sea level rise are some of the changes this may cause. The biggest uncertainty in such projections is how sizable human emissions will be over that time.

So what to do about it? One idea is called carbon sequestration — basically injecting carbon dioxide produced by coal-burning power plants into underground aquifers. Carbon dioxide is perhaps the most worrisome greenhouse gas that burning fossil fuels, the mainstays of the modern era, produces.

And there are other options for cutting emissions, such as increasing fuel efficiency and switching to alternative fuels, but economic forecasts from the Joint Global Change Research Institute in College Park, Md., and elsewhere suggest it's unlikely people will suddenly stop burning coal, gasoline or natural gas any time soon.

If that's the case, stuffing the carbon dioxide from power plants and elsewhere underground might be one option to cut emissions, researchers have suggested, especially if, to offset the costs of global warming, some sort of price is put on each ton of carbon dioxide produced. Underneath Midwestern states are layers of sandstone into which the gas might be pumped, preventing any escape into the atmosphere. Oil field drillers sometimes use the technique to increase the pressure within an oil field, although in that arrangement the gas can escape back into the atmosphere.

Carbon sequestration would be fine for the Midwest, where there are plenty of sandstone layers, but not so great for the Pacific Northwest and Southeast, which lack them, says environmental scientist B. Peter McGrail of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash. His team reports another solution for those states in perhaps the least likely of locations — under the hardened lava of old volcanic eruptions.

In a study accepted for publication in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth, McGrail and colleagues report that ancient lava flows, perhaps 10 million years old in Washington State, sandwich deep basalt rock layers that would keep carbon dioxide thoroughly bottled up. "A simple fact of the physics of lava flows" reliably creates these layers, McGrail says, about 3,000 feet deep. Just like baking bread, bubbles in lava flows become trapped between the cooling outer crust, making the interior of a lava layer permeable.

Most surprising, the stone within those water-filled layers appears to mix with carbon dioxide to form solid rock, the team reports, alleviating worries about the gas leaking away once it is buried. The process starts within a year to three year's time of injecting the carbon dioxide, astonishingly fast by geological standards. "Essentially we are making limestone," McGrail says.

Farmers in Washington State rely on water trapped in some near-surface aquifers, but the water layers McGrail's team hopes to inject carbon dioxide into are sulfur-rich, "nasty stuff," he says. A small drilling experiment is planned for next year to test sequestration and the team should know by 2010 if the gas is staying put.

The lava layers buried underground often mark moments of big extinction in the fossil record, McGrail notes. "It's nice to think we could put them to a positive use."

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HANWAKAN CENTER SUMMER GATHERING AND CONFERENCE SET
SOURCE: Hanwakan Center - June 2006

The bi-annual meeting of the Hanwakan Center for Prehistoric Astronomy, Cosmology and Cultural Landscape Studies, Inc. has been confirmed! It will be held this August 26 and 27 at the Marsh Haven Nature Center
Located at W10145 Hwy 49 East, Waupun, Wisconsin 53963 Phone (920) 324-5818

Updates will be sent to mailing list participants and members via the Sojourner newsletter and postings on this website. You should receive your Sojourner within the next couple of weeks.

Hanwakan officers are discussing the Summer Conference venue and would appreciate members’ input. Holding the meeting in the Black Hills of South Dakota would provide numerous benefits and extraordinary field trips. Officers would like answers from participants to three questions on a questionnaire.

We'd appreciate your answers to our questionnaire. You may also telephone Herman Bender at (920) 922-7182

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HAWKING: HUMANS MUST SPREAD OUT IN SPACE
SOURCE: Associated Press - June 2006

HONG KONG (AP) -- The survival of the human race depends on its ability to find new homes elsewhere in the universe because there's an increasing risk that a disaster will destroy Earth, world-renowned physicist Stephen Hawking said Tuesday. Humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years, the British scientist told a news conference.

"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system," added Hawking, who came to Hong Kong to a rock star's welcome Monday. Tickets for his lecture Thursday were sold out. Hawking said that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.

“It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."
The 64-year-old scientist - author of the global best-seller "A Brief History of Time" - uses a wheelchair and communicates with the help of a computer because he suffers from a neurological disorder called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS.

One of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation, Hawking has done groundbreaking research on black holes and the origins of the universe, proposing that space and time have no beginning and no end.
However, Alan Guth, a physics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said Hawking's latest observations were something of a departure from his usual research and more applicable to survival over the long-term.

Hawking's comments Tuesday were reminiscent of the work of American astrophysicist Carl Sagan, who was a believer in the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence.

Sagan, a Cornell University professor and NASA-decorated scientist who died in 1996, noted that organic molecules, the kind that life on Earth is dependent on, appear to be almost everywhere in the solar system.
Sagan played a leading role in the U.S. space program, helping design robotic missions and contributing to the Mariner, Viking, Voyager and Galileo expeditions.

But his work also focused on the search for habitable worlds and intelligent life beyond the solar system, as well as theories about life's origins, ideas popularized in his best-selling 1985 novel, "Contact," which was made into a film starring Jodie Foster.

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FORGERY BOMBSHELL
SOURCE: Biblical Archaeology Magazine - May 2006

UPDATE: In previous H.I.T.S. Newsletters we have covered both sides of the story concerning the funeral bone box supposedly associated with the family of Jesus the Christ. In this newest twist, the ossuary inscribed "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus" has recently been studied by Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, a world-renowned authority. He has reached startling conclusions that will change the debate over this highly controversial artifact. As this is being written, Israeli antiquities collector Oded Golan is being tried in criminal court for forging the now-famous James ossuary inscription ("James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus"). A new report by a leading German scientist, however, may blow the case out of the water.

According to Professor Wolfgang E. Krumbein, of Oldenburg University, Germany, a well-known expert in geology, geochemistry and microbiology, "We can state with certainty that a period of 50-100 years, at least, was necessary for the formation of the specific composition of patina whose traces were identified inside the ossuary inscription."

Krumbein also examined the patina on the ossuary far from the inscription. His conclusion:

"Patina sampled from the surface of the ossuary, far away from the inscription, was found to be identical to the microscopic traces of patina, which I found inside the ossuary inscription and sites sloping from the surface into the inscription grooves (and no indication of any kind was found of any adhesive on this patina). Therefore, we must conclude that the patina formed over the entire ossuary and the remains of patina in the inscription area were formed over the same period of time."

What about the examination and reports by Tel Aviv University Professor Yuval Goren and his colleague Avner Ayalon of the Geological Survey of Israel on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), concluding without doubt that the inscription is a modern forgery?

Professor Krumbein directly addresses their reports:
"The conclusions noted in the reports by Goren, Ayalon and their colleagues, originate from a series of errors, biases, mistaken premises, use of inappropriate methodology, mistaken geochemistry, defective error control, reliance on unconfirmed data, disregard of information (such as the cleaning and preservation actions performed [on the ossuary], and the use of a comparative isotope methodology despite the fact that the [James ossuary] inscription fail[s] to meet the cumulative prerequisite conditions for such tests and comparisons." Each charge is documented in detail in Krumbein's report.

Professor Krumbein is considered one of the world's leading experts on stone chemistry and biology. He has been a visiting professor at numerous universities, including Harvard, and has conducted post-doctorate research at Hebrew University. He is the recipient of two honorary doctorates. He has edited 15 scientific books and has published over 400 articles in scholarly journals. He was recommended to undertake this study by Professor Steven Weiner, the director of the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute in Israel, who was asked for a recommendation by Golan's attorney, Lior Bringer.

Under the heading "Disregard of Relevant Information," Krumbein noted that Yuval Goren and Avner Ayalon ignored the fact that some members of the IAA team also observed original patina in the inscription, patina that Krumbein himself observed. As stated in his report, "I found traces of natural patina inside the ossuary inscription in at least three different sites of the inscription (in the first and last sections of the inscription)." He pointedly added (an apparent reference to observations of other members of the IAA team), "Traces of ancient patina were found inside the area of the inscription... not only by us."
Professor Krumbein had available to him the photographs taken of the ossuary at the time the inscription was initially published in BAR, the photographs taken at the Royal Ontario Museum after the ossuary had broken into five pieces during transit from Israel, photographs taken by the IAA after the ossuary was confiscated, and photographs he himself took when he examined the ossuary in 2005. From a comparison of these photographs, Professor Krumbein found that "the ossuary inscription recently was altered and contaminated by the IAA and/or police." Professor Krumbein notes that "Traces of such [original] patina are evident in photographs of several letters taken in 2002."

Krumbein compared pictures taken in 2002 (published in BAR) with photographs subsequently used in presentations by Goren. In the 2002 photographs there is hardly any filling inside the letters, filling that Goren called the "inscription coating" and more sarcastically (implying a forgery) as the James Bond. This, according to Goren was the paste or adhesive (the bond) used by the forgers to cover the evidence of a modern forged engraving. Krumbein reported that later photographs, taken in 2003 by the IAA, do "show the presence of a 'granular' coating [the inscription coating or James Bond]." On Krumbein's examination in 2005, however, he "saw no traces of such granular coating inside these letters, because these had been recently removed by the IAA/police." Krumbein then observes, "This could be taken as a documentation of deliberate manipulation of the inscription patina by the IAA and/or police during the custody period."

The Krumbein report goes on: While the ossuary was in the custody of he IAA "The inscription and surrounding areas was contaminated using silicon-like red material, preventing more comprehensive tests to confirm or disprove previous test results." The red material was apparently used to make a cast of the inscription. The remains of this material are visible in many of the photographs Krumbein took in 2005.

The Krumbein report also accuses the IAA of ignoring exculpatory evidence. In his report for the IAA, Professor Goren states: "The inscription has been engraved or cleaned over its entire length in the modern age." In their scientific publication Goren and his colleagues acknowledge that the inscription was "freshly cleaned." The Krumbein report charges that "The IAA completely ignored these statements and specifically ignored the ramifications of the cleaning," which would account for the presence of the inscription coating.

Goren and Ayalon conducted oxygen isotope tests on the inscription coating (or James Bond), which in their report is the basis for concluding that the inscription is a forgery. The Krumbein report states that "the isotopic tests conducted on the ossuary inscription patina are irrelevant and can provide no indication of the dating of the inscription production, because the item fails to meet the prerequisite conditions, which are necessary if such tests should bear any scientific meaning." The Krumbein report explains at great length why this is so.

Professor Goren also condemned the ossuary inscription because he found microfossils of nanoplankton (coccoliths) in the inscription coating that, in Professor Goren's words, "are abundant in marine-derived sedimentary rocks (such as chalk), but are nonexistent in terrain-derived sediments. This phenomenon is unique to the inscription coating and was never observed in the other patina samples."

Krumbein directly contradicts Professor Goren:
"Contrary to Professor Goren's opinion, marine microfossils, unobservable to the naked eye, are commonly found in the patina on stone artifacts from the Jerusalem region and were found by us on the ossuary also at places far away from the inscription. Not only do they not indicate a forgery, their presence in the patina reinforces the arguments supporting the authenticity of such items...Over 150 years of literature it was established that all kinds of microfossil remains are permanently blown by wind and storm into the atmosphere and deposited on exposed surfaces and even penetrate into caves."
Professor Krumbein concludes:

"The patina covering several of the inscription letters is no less authentic than the patina covering the other parts of the ossuary, which, according to the IAA team, is authentic."

Professor Krumbein also analyzes the Yehoash (or Jehoash) inscription and the ornamentation on a stone oil lamp, both of which have been charged to be forgeries. In these cases, too, Professor Krumbein finds evidence supporting the authenticity of the inscription and the ornamentation.

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WERE GREEKS 1,400 YEARS AHEAD OF THEIR TIME?
SOURCE: The Scotsman – June 2006

For decades, we have watched Ancient Mysteris and Discovery Channel program about ancient technologies ans researchers have been baffled by a particular intricate bronze mechanism of wheels and dials created 80 years before the birth of Christ. Called the "Antikythera Mechanism", it was discovered damaged and fragmented on the wreck of a cargo ship off the tiny Greek island of Antikythera in 1900. Now, a joint British-Greek research team has found a hidden ancient Greek inscription on the device, which it thinks could unlock the mystery. The team believes the Antikythera Mechanism may be the world's oldest computer, used by the Greeks to predict the motion of the planets.
The researchers say the device indicates a technical sophistication that would not be replicated for millennia and may also be based on principles of a heliocentric, or sun-centred, universe - a view of the cosmos that was not accepted by astronomers until the Renaissance. The Greek and British scientists used three-dimensional X-ray technology to make visible inscriptions that have gone unseen for 2,000 years.
Mike Edmunds, an astrophysicist at Cardiff University, who is heading the British team, said: "The real question is, 'What was the device actually for?' Was it a used to predict calendars? Was it simply a teaching tool? The new text we have discovered should help answer these questions".
The mechanism contains over 30 bronze wheels and dials and was probably operated by hand, Mr Edmunds said. The most prominent appraisal of the mechanism's purpose was put forward in 2002 by Michael Wright, the curator of mechanical engineering at the Science Museum in London, who said it was used to track the movements of all the celestial bodies known to the Greeks: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Mr Wright's theory is that the device was created in an academy founded by the Stoic philosopher Poseidonios on the Greek island of Rhodes. The writings of the 1st-century BC orator and philosopher Cicero - himself a former student of Poseidonios - cite a device with similarities to the mechanism.
Xenophon Moussas, a researcher at Athens University, said the newly discovered text seems to confirm that the mechanism was used to track planetary bodies. The researchers are looking at whether the device placed the sun, not the earth, at the centre of the solar system. He said: "It is a puzzle concerning astronomical and mathematical knowledge in antiquity. The mechanism could rewrite certain chapters in this area."
Yanis Bitsakis, also of Athens University, added: "The challenge is to place this device into a scientific context, as it comes almost out of nowhere ... and flies in the face of established theory that considers the ancient Greeks were lacking in applied technical knowledge."
Mr Edmunds said the researchers were prepared for an onslaught of conspiracy theories. "There's no indication that the device is anything we wouldn't expect of the Greeks or something that would require an extra-terrestrial explanation. "I think it is a great testament to the sophistication of the Greeks and how far they advanced before the jackboot of the Romans came through."
If the Antikythera Mechanism turns out to have been a machine for showing the movements of the planets around the sun, it would greatly alter our understanding of the history of astronomy. Although at least one Greek thinker posited a heliocentric view of the solar system, the dominant view at the time was Aristotle's - that the Earth was the centre of the universe and that everything rotated around it in perfect, circular orbits. It was not until 1,400 years later that Copernicus and Galileo conclusively proved the heliocentric view, which greatly altered man's understanding of his importance and position in the universe.
Their work was met with stern resistance, as the Church believed the Aristotlean view - which put humanity at the centre of the cosmos - was integral to man's direct relation to God. Researchers are now searching for clues that the Antikythera Mechanism might have been governed by heliocentric principles. If they are successful, it would suggest the heliocentric world-view was more accepted by the Greeks than thought.

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ARCHAEOLOGISTS MAY HAVE FOUND TROPICAL STONEHENGE
SOURCE: Associated Press – June 2006

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- A grouping of127 granite blocks, some as high as 9 feet tall, and spaced at regular intervals around a hill, like a crown 100 feet in diameter blocks have been discovered along a grassy Amazon hilltop. Archaeologists say it may be the vestiges of a centuries-old astronomical observatory and indicates early rainforest inhabitants were more sophisticated than previously believed.

On the shortest day of the year -- the winter solstice on Dec. 21 -- the shadow of one of the blocks disappears when the sun is directly above it.

Even though anthropologists have long known that the areas indigenous populations were acute observers of the stars and sun, they believe the discovery of this structure suggests pre-Columbian Indians in the Amazon rainforest had knowledge of astronomy more advanced than previously suspected.

Scientists have been studying the site, near the village of Calcoene, just north of the equator in Amapa state in far northern Brazil, since last year. They believe it was once inhabited by the ancestors of the Palikur Indians, and while the blocks have not yet been submitted to carbon dating, the pottery shards near the site indicate they are pre-Columbian and maybe older -- as much as 2,000 years old.

OBSERVATORY DISCOVERY NEAR LIMA, PERU

Last month, archaeologists working on a hillside north of Lima, Peru, announced the discovery of the oldest astronomical observatory in the Western Hemisphere -- giant stone carvings, apparently 4,200 years old, align with sunrise and sunset on Dec. 21.

While the Incas, Mayans and Aztecs built large cities and huge rock structures, pre-Columbian Amazon societies built smaller settlements of wood and clay that quickly deteriorated in the hot, humid Amazon climate, disappearing centuries ago, archaeologists say.

Farmers and fishermen in the region around the Amazon site have long known about it, and the local press has dubbed it the "tropical Stonehenge." Archeologists got involved last year after geographers and geologists did a socio-economic survey of the area, by foot and helicopter, and noticed "the unique circular structure on top of the hill," Cabral said.

Scientists not involved in the discovery said it could prove valuable to understanding pre-Columbian societies in the Amazon.

"No one has ever described something like this before. This is an extremely novel find -- a one of a kind type of thing," said Michael Heckenberger of the University of Florida's Department of Anthropology.

He said that while carbon dating and further excavation must be carried out, the find adds to a growing body of thought among archaeologists that prehistory in the Amazon region was more varied than had been believed.

"Given that astronomical objects, stars, constellations etc., have a major importance in much of Amazonian mythology and cosmology, it does not in any way surprise me that such an observatory exists," said Richard Callaghan, a professor of geography, anthropology and archaeology at the University of Calgary.

Brazilian archaeologists will return in August, when the rainy season ends, to carry out carbon dating and further excavations.

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GERMAN "STONEHENGE" MARKS OLDEST OBSERVATORY
SOURCE: Archaeology Magazine July – August 2006

A vast, shadowy circle sits in a flat wheat field near Goseck, Germany. No, it is not a pattern made by tipsy graduate students. The circle represents the remains of the world's oldest observatory, dating back 7,000 years. Coupled with an etched disk recovered last year, the observatory suggests that Neolithic and Bronze Age people measured the heavens far earlier and more accurately than scientists had imagined.

Archaeologists reported the Goseck circle's identity and age this past August. First spotted by airplane, the circle is 75 meters wide. Originally, it consisted of four concentric circles--a mound, a ditch and two wooden palisades about the height of a person--in which stood three sets of gates facing southeast, southwest and north, respectively. On the winter solstice, someone at the center of the circles would see the sun rise and set through the southern gates
Although aerial surveys have demarcated 200-odd similar circles scattered across Europe, the Goseck structure is the oldest and best preserved of the 20 excavated thus far, and it is the first circle whose function is evident. Though called the German Stonehenge, it precedes Stonehenge by at least two millennia. The linear designs on pottery shards found within the compound suggest that the observatory was built in 4900 B.C.

Perhaps the observatory's most curious aspect is that the roughly 100-degree span between the solstice gates corresponds with an angle on a bronze disk unearthed on a hilltop 25 kilometers away, near the town of Nebra. The Nebra disk, measuring 32 centimeters in diameter, dates from 1600 B.C. and is the oldest realistic representation of the cosmos yet found. It depicts a crescent moon, a circle that was probably the full moon, a cluster of seven stars interpreted to represent the Pleiades, scattered other stars and three arcs, all picked out in gold leaf from a background rendered violet-blue--apparently by applying rotten eggs.

The two opposing arcs, which run along the rim, are 82.5 degrees long and mark the sun's positions at sunrise and sunset. The lowest points of the two arcs are 97.5 degrees apart, signifying sunrise and sunset on the winter solstice in central Germany at the time. Likewise, the uppermost points mark sunrise and sunset on the summer solstice. The sun's position at solstice has shifted slightly over the past millennia, notes Wolfhard Schlosser of the Ruhr University in Bochum, so that the angle between sunrise and sunset is now slightly farther apart than when the Nebra disk and the Goseck circle were made (by 1.6 and 2.8 degrees, respectively).

Nearby excavations of wood-and-clay houses have turned up a variety of grains and evidence of domesticated goats, sheep, pigs and cows. Farmers reached this part of the world some 500 years before they built the solar observatory. Although these earliest Neolithic agriculturists most likely measured only the sun's movements, over millennia they came to quantify the lunar cycle and the positions of constellations. The Pleiades, which depart the northern sky in spring and reappear in the fall, still mark crop cycles for many farmers around the world. The Nebra disk may have been a ritual object or, more likely--given its precision--a calculational tool used with observations at Goseck or a similar site to determine planting and harvest times.

The third arc on the disk, believes Francois Bertemes of the University of Halle-Wittenberg, is the stuff of legend. The ancients did not understand how the sun could set in the west and end up in the east the next morning. Representations of a disk in a ship, from Bronze Age Egypt and Scandinavia, reveal an age-old belief that a ship carried the sun across the night sky. The Nebra disk is the first evidence of such a faith in central Europe. That the land-bound cultivators knew of ships is no surprise: Bertemes points out that travelers spread the latest in Bronze Age technology as well as mythology.

The third gate at Goseck remains mysterious, however: it points north, but not quite. It may have nothing to do with astronomy, for the compound was more than a solar station. In addition to pottery shards and arrowheads within, excavators found the decapitated skulls of oxen, apparently displayed on poles, and parts of two human skeletons. The human bones were cleaned of flesh before being buried. Similar skeletons--several with cut marks or with arrowheads in their necks--have turned up in other circles, but archaeologists cannot agree on whether they attest to human sacrifices or to uncommonly gory funeral rites. Nevertheless, such ceremonies anoint the site as a temple, Bertemes notes--and show that science was inextricably entangled with superstition since Neolithic times.

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PYRAMID DISCOVERED IN BOSNIA
SOURCE: Archaeology Magazine July – August 2006

VISOKO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Researchers in Bosnia have unearthed the first solid evidence that an ancient pyramid lies hidden beneath a massive hill — a series of geometrically cut stone slabs that could form part of the structure's sloping surface.

Archaeologists and other experts began digging into the sides of the mysterious hill near the central Bosnian town of Visoko last week. On Wednesday, the digging revealed large stone blocks on one side that the leader of the team believes are the outer layer of the pyramid.

"These are the first uncovered walls of the pyramid," said Semir Osmanagic, a Bosnian archaeologist who studied the pyramids of Latin America for 15 years.

Osmanagic said Wednesday's discovery significantly bolsters his theory that the 2,120-foot hill rising above the small town of Visoko is actually a step pyramid — the first found in Europe.
"We can see the surface is perfectly flat. This is the crucial material proof that we are talking pyramids," he said.

Osmanagic believes the structure itself is a colossal 722 feet high, or a third taller than Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza. The huge stone blocks discovered Wednesday appear to be cut in cubes and polished.

"It is so obvious that the top of the blocks, the surface is man made," Osmanagic said. He plans to continue the work throughout the summer, "after which the pyramid will be visible," he said.
Earlier research on the hill, known as Visocica, found that it has perfectly shaped, 45-degree slopes pointing toward the cardinal points, and a flat top. Under layers of dirt, workers discovered a paved entrance plateau, entrances to tunnels and large stone blocks.

Satellite photographs and thermal imaging revealed two other, smaller
Last week's excavations began with a team of rescue workers from a nearby coal mine being sent into a tunnel believed to be part of an underground network connecting the three pyramid-shaped hills.

They were followed by archeologists, geologists and other experts who emerged from the tunnel later to declare that it was certainly man-made.

The work will continue for about six months at the site just outside Visoko, about 20 miles northwest of the capital, Sarajevo. Two experts from Egypt are due to join the team in mid-May.
"It will be a very exciting archaeological spring and summer," Osmanagic said.

The Bosnian Pyramid, Visocica Hill, is the first European pyramid to be discovered and is located in the heart of Bosnia, in the town of Visoko. The pyramid has all the elements: four perfectly shaped slopes pointing toward the cardinal points, a flat top and an entrance complex. There are also the ruins of a Medieval walled town, once the base of a Bosnian king Tvrtko of Kotromanic (1338-1391). Because of its similarities to the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico, it has been named the “Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun” ('Bosanska Piramida Sunca'). There are also a four more ancient structures on the site, the Bosnian Pyramid of the Moon ('Bosanska Piramida Mjeseca'), Bosnian Pyramid of the Dragon ( 'Bosanska Piramida Zmaja'), Bosnian Pyramid of the Love ('Bosanska Piramida Ljubavi') and Temple of the Earth, ('Hram Zemlje').

'We have already dug out stone blocks which I believe are covering the pyramid', said Semir (Sam) Osmanagic, a Bosnian American archaeologist who has spent the last 15 years studying the pyramids of Latin America. 'We found a paved entrance plateau and discovered underground tunnels'.....

The two Egyptian scientists working at the Bosnian pyramids - geologist Barakat and archeologist Lamia El Hadidi – have made some of their findings public prior to completing their work at the site. They conclude that there are ancient man-made structures in the Visocica Hill region.
When he first arrived in Bosnia, geologist Barakat said that Visocica Hill was probably ‘some kind of primitive pyramid’. After more than a month working at the site, his opinion remains unchanged.

Barakat said, “For me, as a scientist and geologist, there’s still no doubt that this is man-made. I think that humans cut, polished, reshaped and formed stone blocks {that form the pyramid), bringing them here and adding them to the existing hill in order to give the shape of a pyramid to the hill.”

Archaeologist El Hadidi added that a large archaeological site has been found on the so-called Pyramid of the Moon, near to the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun. She said they were unable, at this stage, to date the site, saying that further research is needed. However, she confirmed earlier conclusions that this site also represents a pyramid. “It is really impossible that nature creates shapes like this. Maybe one, but not three or four sides of the hill as we have here. There is still a lot of work to be done here, if we want to unveil all the secrets of this valley.”

Skepticism about the existence of the pyramids remains within parts of the scientific community. This may be partly because the site in Bosnia does not represent our traditional image of pyramids - as in Egypt - but a different kind of structure where stones have been placed around an existing hill to form the shape of a pyramid.

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WHAT AMERICA BELIEVES ABOUT THE BIBLE
SOURCE: Bible Review – Winter 2005

Late 20th century and (thus far) early 21st century Americans are surely the most prodded, probed and polled people in history. Pollsters contact, calculate and communicate Americans’ views on every topic imaginable (and some that, frankly, I couldn’t imagine), from political persuasions to sexual positions. Thus, it should come as no surprise that statistical studies are regularly conducted about religious beliefs and practices in general, and specifically about how Americans view the Bible.

In 2005, the oft-cited Gallup Poll asks respondents to choose which of the following views comes closest to their own: (1) “The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word”; (2) “The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally”; (3) “The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man.”
The results are; 32% believe “The Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally word for word”;

47% believe “The Bible is the inspired word of God but not everything in it should be taken literally”;
18% believe “The Bible is an ancient book of fables, legends, history and moral precepts recorded by man”;
and 3% didn’t even want to talk about it!

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Another find in Valley of the Kings
SOURCE: Associated Press

Friday 10 February 2006 - Through a partially opened underground door, Egyptian authorities have peeked into the first new tomb uncovered in the Valley of the Kings since that of King Tutankhamun in 1922. US archaeologists on Friday said they discovered the tomb by accident while working on a nearby site.

Still unknown is whose mummies are in the five wooden sarcophagi with painted funeral masks, surrounded by alabaster jars inside the undecorated single-chamber tomb. The tomb, believed to be some 3000 years old, dating to the 18th Dynasty, does not appear to be that of a pharaoh, said Edwin Brock, co-director of the University of Memphis that discovered the site.

No royal tomb. Brock said: "I don't think it's a royal tomb, maybe members of the court. Contemporaries of Tutankhamun are possible - or of Amunhotep III or even Horemheb."

Zahi Hawass, Egypt's antiquities chief, said: "Maybe they are mummies of kings or queens or nobles, we don't know. But it's definitely someone connected to the royal family."

"It could be the gardener," Schaden joked to Hawass at the site. "But it's somebody who had the favour of the king because not everybody could come and make their tomb in the Valley of the Kings."

So far, archaeologists have not entered the tomb, having only opened part of its 1.5-metre-high entrance door last week. But they have peered inside the single chamber to see the sarcophagi, believed to contain mummies, surrounded by around 20 pharaonic jars.

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New species found in New Guinea
SOURCE: www.mongabay.com/

FEBRUARY 2006 - A team of scientists led by Conservation International (CI) found dozens of new species in a survey of New Guinea's Foja Mountains. The discoveries were made under CI's Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) which deploys expert scientists to poorly understood regions in order to quickly assess the biological diversity of an area. The conservation organization makes RAP results immediately available to local and international decision makers to help support conservation action and biodiversity protection. New Guinea's forests are some of the most bio-diverse in the world, but they are increasingly under threat from commercial logging.

A fleet of barges could be used to help protect Europe from plunging into a deep freeze should climate change disrupt Atlantic currents that presently keep the region warm.

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Religion in America becoming more commercial
SOURCE: ABC NEWS and The Christian Science Monitor

The concept of communing with god and others of ones faith has become infused by the Wal-Mart mega-store mentality. We are now considered religious consumers by mainstream spiritual leaders. It has become all too apparent that Americans who are known for their love of "super-sizing" — from French fries to cars to houses — are celebrating on a much larger scale, in huge congregations known as "mega-churches," where people can do much more than just worship.

These mega-churches are places where members can not only pray, but work out in a gym, eat at a food court or browse in a bookstore. And they are becoming popular across the country. For one family in Texas, church is not some chore to attend to on Easter Sunday. It's not even just a Sunday outing. They spend as much time at Prestonwood Baptist Church as they do at their home. But Prestonwood is not a simple church — its sprawling campus covers 140 acres.

Dad works out at Prestonwood, and mom teaches religion. The kids hang out in the children's section, and their older sister goes to school at Prestonwood and sings in the choir. Prestonwood has sports fields, an arcade, small bible-study groups and a bookstore on what is called Main Street just like Disneyland. There is even a food court where the family frequently eat, complete with a Starbucks. For this family, church is actually fun because it is being viewed as a product. And this family, like too many others, is buying. Prestonwood's worship center seats 7,000, but even that isn't big enough to hold all of the members. Every weekend, there are three services to accommodate Prestonwood's membership of 24,000 people.

Megachurches Today 2005, a survey conducted by researchers at Hartford Seminary in Connecticut and Leadership Network in Dallas, has identified 1,210 American megachurches with an average weekly attendance of 3,612. Not surprisingly, the great majority is in the South, yet megachurches now can be found in all regions of the country.

The study debunks many myths about supersized congregations. The vast majority, it turns out, are not politically active. Nor are they homogenous: On average, 19 percent of the congregation is a non-majority group; 56 percent of churches are making efforts to be racially inclusive. They are not mostly independent churches; two-thirds are affiliated with denominations. And they are part of a broader trend found in other research: a growing concentration of worshipers in the largest churches. Nearly all use visual projection equipment and most incorporate contemporary music styles (93 percent use electric guitars and drums) to create an effective sales presentation. Styles of worship continually evolve. The churches growing most quickly are those that welcome innovation and change, the study says.

While the phenomenon has developed over decades and represents only 0.5 percent of all US churches, the rising influence of megachurches reaches beyond their own congregations. Much the way Wal-Mart has overshadowed small businesses in many cities across America.

Megachurches have often been criticized for being too businesslike. Church leaders claim that it is perhaps the "purpose-driven" books and conferences that drive this trend. According to them, Church is a family built on relationships and has changed lives, and that, is what really makes churches grow. Not that god is now being sold as a product to consumer oriented Americans.

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Distant world tops Pluto for size
SOURCE: BBC News science reporter

January 2006 - An icy, rocky world reported last year to be orbiting the Sun in the distant reaches of the Solar System really is bigger than Pluto, scientists say. New observations of the object, which goes by the designation 2003 UB313, show it to have a diameter of some 3,000km - about 700km more than Pluto.
It is likely to bolster claims for the body to be given planet status. On the other hand, it will also give support to those who believe Pluto has an inflated position and should be downgraded to a more minor classification.

"I'm easy on this," said Professor Frank Bertoldi, from the University of Bonn and the Max-Planck-Institute for Radioastronomy. "I would not want to demote Pluto for historical and cultural reasons - you'd upset the schoolchildren. So, it seems only fair to call objects larger than Pluto planets as well. I think we could cope," he told the BBC News website.

If granted such a classification, the object would assume a name from Greek or Roman mythology.
But the request has led to heated discussions within the science of astronomy which is now facing up to the prospect of even more objects of similar size being discovered in the Kuiper Belt in the next few years. Can they all be classed as planets?

Like Pluto, 2003 UB313 orbits beyond Neptune in a region known as the Kuiper Belt. Scientists think there are probably many tens of thousands of freezing bodies in this ring of debris left over from the formation of the Solar System.

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SILENCING SCIENTISTS BACKFIRES AGAIN
Source: Star Tribune Minneapolis, Minnesota - February 2006

One nice thing about political appointees trying to muzzle government professionals is that the move so often backfires; calling even more attention to the messages they were trying to suppress. Certainly that's been the case in the recent turmoil at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where climate scientists have been pressured to pipe down about global warming.

The Bush administration's sensitivity on this subject is well known. So are its efforts to edit federal reports in line with the president's preferences, which are to magnify scientific disagreements, call for more research and put off action.

Still, it was shocking to hear NASA's top climate scientist, the respected James Hansen, go public late last month with his superiors' demands that he let them review in advance his speaking engagements, press interviews, publications and Internet postings. In some cases, they simply canceled or rejected interviews.

Much attention has focused on the main bearer of those demands, a 24-year-old public-information officer whose chief credential seems to be service in the president's reelection campaign (and who has since resigned over falsehoods in his résumé). But nobody can seriously believe that the kid acted all on his own -- nor swallow the assertions of NASA managers that they were only trying to coordinate communications.

Now three NOAA scientists have come forward with similar accounts of interference -- PR minders insisting on being present for press interviews, dissenting views deleted from official publications, media appearances canceled. Predictably, NOAA officials say there was no effort to discourage these experts from speaking freely -- their directives must have been misunderstood, is all.

And what were these researchers saying that was so controversial? Hansen's views are entirely mainstream: Humans are accelerating global warming by loading the atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and it would be good to throttle back a bit. Over at NOAA, the issues seem to be similar, with one additional aspect -- a leading climate modeler's acknowledgment that Atlantic hurricanes may be intensifying because of climate change.

The top administrators of both NOAA and NASA have now said publicly that their scientists will be permitted, even encouraged, to speak freely. It's a shame such pledges are even necessary. But they seem to represent progress.
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