9-11 was planned to occur on exactly when the US were having an anti-terrorist wargame exercise which speculated that a plane could crash into the Pentagon

The biggest category of moon-visitor is trees

Blondes will become extinct...

...except it was just a joke

"Tycoon Joseph Williamson dug a vast, bizarre network of tunnels under Liverpool almost 200 years ago. Were they the city's first job creation scheme, a rich man's whimsy or a shelter from the end of the world?"

I guess we might never know, but it helps to remind us that some ancient structures and buildings might not be for worshipping or rituals - they might just be the the product of a rich guy with too much imagination, and not much sense.

A 17 year study of more than 10,000 male Scandinavian airline pilots shows no greater incidence of cancer than non-pilot groups.

Scientists know that cosmic rays cause mutations, but if they don't cause cancer, what do the mutations do? Mutate in good ways? Evolution?

"It comes from observations of a fast-moving star which orbits close to the hole, referred to by astronomers as Sagittarius A* (its location in the sky is in the southern constellation Sagittarius).

Calculations based on the behaviour of the star suggest the black hole has a mass roughly 2.6 million times that of the Sun."

"A series of prehistoric stone structures, reminiscent of Stonehenge but taller and possibly earlier, have been located 3,500ft above sea level on a mountain in Calabria, southern Italy"

I have looked up the site using the Alexandria Digital Library Gazetteer Server and it is at:

Longitude: 16.350000 (16°21'0"E)

Latitude: 38.433334 (38°26'0"N)

Russian and American scientists have found "golden hairs" in Antarctic ice. Made of a silver and gold alloy, these thin strands are definitely man-made, and thousands of years old. It appears that ancient civilizations managed to visit everywhere...

A human hair was discovered discovered at Mammoth Park, Oregon, in July 2000.

"DNA analysis could provoke a constitutional storm. The hair, 40cm long, is said to be the oldest piece of organic human remains: it has been carbon dated twice, but the results have not been published and the research remains controversial."

One archaeologist believes it to be 12,000 years old. A DNA test, which shows no relationship to present day native Americans, could be evidence of Atlantean survivors!

""It's possible that the so-called paleoindians are not the ancestors of native Americans. Either they didn't leave any ancestors, or they were replaced by other peoples."

A team of scientists studied families in an area of India which receives 10 times more natural radiation than the global average. When they looked at:

"a non-coding region of the DNA where mutations have no effect on health or on any other visible features...

...The scientists identified 22 mutations in the mitochondrial DNA sequences of families living in the high-radiation area. By comparison, a control population living on white sand nearby only had one mutation."

[ Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother and can be used to determine whether a mutation is passed on from the mother to her descendents. ]

The evidence for inherited mutations is mounting. How long before scientists make the link between evolution and mutation-causing comsic rays?

These are quotes from New Scientist, Sept 28, 2002 edition. The article is not available online. In essence it suggests that animals can store mutations for many generations, and then activate them at a time when evolution might be necessary (ie just after a catastrophe). Related animals would all evolve in the same manner.

• By squirrelling away genetic mutations, the raw material of evolution, and releasing them all at once, species may be able to leap from peak to evolutionary peak without ever having to slog through the valleys between.

• The lead actor in this iconoclastic drama is a so-called "chaperone" protein called hsp90 [a heat shock protein].

• But when the researchers looked more closely at their abnormal flies...each set of parents tended to produce offspring with a distinctive set of abnormalities.

• They suggested that the familial abnormalities were caused by "cryptic" genetic defects that had lain hidden for generations and showed up when hsp90 stopped doing its job.

• The upshot of this is that species seem to have a mechanism fro delivering variation - the raw material of evolution - just at the time they need to adapt to a changing environment.

"Peruvian archaeologist Johny Islas and German colleague Markus Reindel have identified new etchings made by the ancient Nasca people in the desert valleys of Palpa, about 460 kilometers (290 miles) south of Lima.

After five years of work, the scientists were able to identify more than 1,000 new geoglyphs."

Hopefully their next print issue will carry the pics.

Not just a new species, the Gladiator represents an entire new order of insect.

"A hardy microbe that can withstand huge doses of radiation could have evolved this ability on Mars.

That is the conclusion of Russian scientists who say it would take far longer than life has existed here for the bug to evolve that ability in Earth's clement conditions. They suggest the harsher environment of Mars makes it a more likely birthplace."

Earth is ruled out because based on current radiation levels, the microbe would not have had enough exposure to radiation. But if Earth had a past of many global catastrophes, with long periods of radiation, the bug could have evolved solely here on Earth.

Made by the placement of stones, the "boomerang" is at least 1 kilometre in length, and located in Morocco. Follow the link for another picture and details of the book they are from (site is in Spanish).

Desert highway threatens Abydos

Leaky sewage threatens Heliopolis

World's oldest boat found in Kuwait

Why are walls 7 metres high being built at Giza?

The walls will enclose approximately eight square kilometers - perhaps there will be a new discovery announced when the wall is finished.

I have previously pointed out similarities between Giza and the Indian mounds along the Mississippi river (which floods just like the Nile)

"Crystal River is a state archaeological site located north of Tampa on the west coast of Florida and was one of the longest continuously occupied sites in Florida (200 B.C. - 1400 A.D.). There are three main earthen mounds. Two are rectangular pyramidal temple mounds with ramps and flat tops for buildings. The center mound is round with a ring mound around it (mostly destroyed); hundreds of burials and artifacts have been excavated from it."

Similarities with Giza:

"Both sites are situated along a river, both are approximately around 30 degrees north latitude and both were known astrological observation sites. The triangle formed by the layout of both sites pyramids and the stars of Orion have identical angles and proportional sides "

It appears that the Egyptians found a hill that was pyramidal in shape, and used it instead of building one.

"So instead of a small rock tomb, we realised it was a proper pyramid tomb: it had all the features you would expect of a pyramid, the only difference being that it was a natural pyramid, rather than a built one."

"By using highly charged orbiting space tethers, the Earth's cocoon of menacing and deadly radiation belts might be easily and largely aced out.

For one, satellites in the future could live longer not having to fend off the frenzy of energetic particles. Moreover, human-carrying spacecraft would be far safer zooming about in Earth orbit or speeding outward to distant destinations.

The novel concept is called the High Voltage Orbiting Long Tether (HiVOLT) System - a proposal from Tethers Unlimited, Inc. of Lynnwood, Washington."

HOW SCARY IS THAT?

Please, please, please don't let scientists tinker with anything that could affect the entire planet!

And the handles are in better condition too. It is the same distance up the shaft as the other one, and presumably will have a door on the other side of it. They have almost certainly drilled a hole through this one too...

"Decades of unusual warmth in regions from Peru to Alaska–a trend some think is linked to emissions from cars and industry–have shrunk or thawed many of the world's 70,000 glaciers. As the ice recedes, a treasure-trove of human and animal artifacts is emerging, extraordinarily well preserved after centuries in the deep freeze. The fabrics, wood, bone, and DNA-rich tissue found on the mucky fringes of the ice are revising scientists' understanding of our predecessors' health, habits, and technology, and the prey they pursued."

This is great news - maybe some evidence of a global catastrophe or ancient civilization will emerge?