Earliest Known Human Had Neanderthal Qualities

Adam, Is That You?
This is a skeletal recreation of the world's first known modern human, based on fossils found in Ethiopia. The arrows point to the newly found bones

Jennifer Viegas,
The world's first known modern human was a tall, thin individual -- probably male -- who lived around 200,000 years ago and resembled present-day Ethiopians, save for one important difference: He retained a few primitive characteristics associated with Neanderthals, according to a series of forthcoming studies conducted by multiple international research teams.

The extraordinary findings, which will soon be outlined in a special issue of the Journal of Human Evolution devoted to the first known Homo sapiens, also reveal information about the material culture of the first known people, their surroundings, possible lifestyle and, perhaps most startling, their probable neighbors -- Homo erectus.

"Omo I," as the researchers refer to the find, would probably have been considered healthy-looking and handsome by today's standards, despite the touch of Neanderthal.

"From the size of the preserved bones, we estimated that Omo I was tall and slender, most likely around 5'10" tall and about 155 pounds," University of New Mexico anthropologist Osbjorn Pearson, who co-authored at least two of the new papers, told Discovery News.

Pearson said another, later fossil was also recently found. It too belonged to a "moderately tall -- around 5'9" -- and slender individual."

"Taken together, the remains show that these early modern humans were...much like the people in southern Ethiopia and the southern Sudan today," Pearson said.

Building On Leakey's Work

Parts of the Omo I skeleton were first excavated in 1967 by a team from the Kenya National Museums under the direction of Richard Leakey, who wrote a forward that will appear in the upcoming journal.

Leakey and his colleagues unearthed two other skeletons, one of which has received little attention. Two of the three skeletons found at the site have been a literal bone of contention among scientists over the past four decades. Reliable dating techniques for such early periods did not exist in the late 60's, and the researchers could not agree upon the identity of the two skeletons.

From 1999 to the present, at least two other major expeditions to the southern Ethiopian site -- called the Kibish Formation -- have taken place, with the goal of solving the mysteries and learning more about what the area was like 200,000 years ago.

As evidenced by photographs showing the researchers followed by armed guards, work at this location proved challenging.

"It took us five plus days to get there from Addis," paleobiologist Josh Trapani of the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Michigan told Discovery News. "Once there, we had intense heat, hyenas outside camp, crocodiles in the river, many insects and two remarkable and very different groups of people, the Mursi and the Nyangatom on opposite sides of the river who were our partners in some of this work."

Primitive, Yet Still Like Us

The ordeals proved successful, as the scientists have recovered new bones for Omo I, some of which perfectly fit into place with the remains Leakey unearthed over 40 years ago.

Several scientists analyzed the bones, including a very detailed, comparative look at the shoulder bone by French paleontologist Jean-Luc Voisin. They concluded that, without a doubt, Omo I represents an anatomically modern human, with bones in the arms, hands and ankles somewhat resembling those of other, earlier human-like species.

"Most of the anatomical features of Omo are like modern humans. Only a few features are similar to more primitive hominids, including Neanderthals and Homo erectus," explained John Fleagle, distinguished professor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York.

"Omo II is more primitive in its cranial anatomy," he added, "and shares more features with Homo erectus and fewer with modern humans."

Unlikely Neighbors

New dating of the finds determined that Omo II lived at around the same time and location as Omo I, indicating that Homo sapiens may have coexisted with Homo erectus, a.k.a. "Upright Man," who is believed to have been the first hominid to leave Africa.

Fleagle explained the detailed nature of the latest dating techniques that place both skeletons at around the 200,000-year-old period.

He said both skeletons were recovered from rocky geological layers, with "Adam" unearthed just above a layer of volcanic rock. Precise dates can then be calculated because "when volcanic rocks form, they start a radiometric clock that ticks at a regular rate."

Fleagle added, "By looking at the ratio of parent minerals and daughter minerals you can calculate when the rocks were initially formed."Material Culture In A Different Environment

Anthropologist John Shea sifted through the Kibish dirt and rocks hoping to find evidence for early material culture.

He found it.

"The assemblages are dominated by relatively high-quality raw materials procured as pebbles from local gravels," Shea determined, adding that he unearthed stone tools flaked on both sides, hand axes, picks and spear-shaped objects. It appears that most were not retouched. So, once the early modern humans crafted their tools, they likely left them as is.

Trapani, who conducted a study on fossil fish at the site, said later-dated barbed bone points recovered from the site look remarkably like catfish spines, which "may be purely coincidental." Or, "alternatively, perhaps the spines impressed early hunters with their potential utility as flesh-piercing hunting implements."

Trapani added, "This may have come about through simple visual inspection or, perhaps -- more likely -- through painful lesson."

Living High on the Hog

Supporting Trapani's findings that large catfish, as well as Nile perch and other fish, were in abundance, studies on the site's geology indicate that conditions were wetter 200,000 years ago.

Yet another study, on the large mammal fauna at Kibish, found the humans were surrounded by big game.

Smithsonian Institution archaeobiologist Zelalem Assefa identified hippos, giraffes, elephants, zebras, rhinos, numerous other hoofed mammals and more.

"In terms of settlement strategy, the early modern humans at Kibish might have practiced some type of seasonal based settlement strategy -- possibly following the movement of big game," Assefa told Discovery News.

Perhaps his two most unusual finds were that very few remains for non-human primates and carnivores were found, which puzzles the researchers, but may suggest that the first known humans didn't have many, if any, animal predators.

Secondly, Assefa was surprised to find duiker (a small, shy antelope that usually prefers forest cover) and giant forest hog remains. The giant forest hog is the largest wild pig on Earth, weighing as much as 600 pounds. Since other parts of the site were probable grasslands, the presence of these two animals suggests a riparian forest must have also been nearby.

An Unfinished Story

Although Omo I may be the world's "Adam" for now, it's possible that modern humans emerged even earlier at some other place in Africa.

"We only have evidence for what we have found," Fleagle said, adding that there "almost certainly were modern individuals before Omo I."

He explained that Ethiopia's geology has deposits suitable to bone preservation and discovery, which is perhaps why so many fossil hominids have been excavated there over the years.

"Paleontology is a very opportunistic science," he concluded. "When we have a record of fossils in one place, we can reconstruct what happened there, but it is impossible to say what was going on in places from which there is no fossil record."

From the Crypt

Archaeologists recently discovered the tomb of an elaborately wrapped, tattooed woman at the top of El Brujo, a ceremonial Moche temple in northwestern Peru. Some experts think the 1,600-year-old mummy's special treatment could indicate she was a warrior queen, a significant break from the common belief that Moche leaders were all men.



The Egyptian tomb complex known as KV5 was built to house the remains of the many sons of Pharaoh Ramses II. Located in the Valley of the Kings, it contains more than 120 chambers and corridors, including the largest room of any tomb in the valley. Here, a skeleton, possibly one of Ramses' sons, lies in an excavated grave.



The pharaohs of Egypt supposedly imbued their ornate burial sites with deadly curses to dissuade would-be looters. For good measure, the Pharaoh Ti had a statue of himself erected in a special chamber to guard his sepulcher in Saqqara.



The walls of the tombs of Egypt's pharaohs were often covered with hieroglyphs that offered, among other things, instructions to the king for navigating the many dangers that lurked in the transit between death and paradise. Here, a man's flashlight illuminates wall writings in a passage in the tomb of Ramses II in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.



The Phoenicians are said to have regularly sacrificed children to appease the gods. These ritual killings and burials allegedly took place at stone sanctuaries called tophets, like this one discovered in the ruins of the colony of Carthage in Tunisia.



An elaborate homage to the dead—and a reminder of mortality to the living—adorns a crypt under Santa Maria della Concezione church in Rome. These macabre ornamentations, constructed from the bones of 4,000 deceased Capuchin friars, “make the people who stacked the bones in Paris’s catacombs look like amateurs,” according to one observer.



Neatly arranged bones sit within a crypt beneath a church in Rome. Burial chambers beneath the Eternal City house the remains of tens of thousands of deceased citizens. One 16th-century church, Santa Maria dell'Orazione e Morte, used its catacombs to provide proper burials for the poor, taking in some 8,000 bodies over a 300-year period.

More than 400 years ago, the monks at the Capuchin monastery in Palermo, Sicily, discovered that deceased friars interred in catacombs underwent natural mummification. Word got out, and the order began allowing ordinary citizens to be buried there as well. Now, visitors can see thousands of preserved corpses, most wearing the tattered remains of their finest garments, arranged in the macabre museum's narrow halls.

The skulls and bones of some 4,000 Capuchin monks, some of whom died nearly five centuries ago, adorn a six-room crypt beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione in Rome. More than a mere burial chamber, the friars have arranged the remains of their brethren into bizarre death art, including chandeliers, archways, and wall decorations.

"Spider God" Temple Found in Peru

A 3,000-year-old temple featuring an image of a spider god may hold clues to little-known cultures in ancient Peru. People of the Cupisnique culture, which thrived from roughly 1500 to 1000 B.C., built the temple in the Lambayeque valley on Peru's north coast.

The adobe temple, found this summer and called Collud, is the third discovered in the area in recent years. (Watch a video of the spider-god temple.)

The finds suggest that the three valley sites may have been part of a large capital for divine worship, said archaeologist Walter Alva, director of the Royal Tombs of Sipán Museum.

Alva and colleagues started the dig in November 2007, when they discovered a 4,000-year-old temple and a mural painting at the Ventarrón site in the valley. Both the temple and mural were the oldest ever found in the Americas.

The entire religious complex houses every ancient Peruvian architectural style up to the Inca, Walter Alva said, one of only a few sites in Peru that spans so many cultures.

Several Meanings

The spider-god image appears often in other sites created during Peru's Early Formative Period, 1200 to 400 B.C.

For instance, the Garagay temple in Lima and the Limón Carro site in northern Peru both include the imagery, according to Ignacio Alva, Walter Alva's son and colleague.

At the newfound Collud, the spider god carried several meanings, experts say.

The image combines a spider's neck and head, the mouth of a large cat, and a bird's beak, Ignacio Alva said.

"Spider God" Temple Found in Peru<< Back to Page 1 Page 2 of 2
The spider is also carved with lines radiating from its neck, creating a web-like appearance.

The web symbolizes hunting nets, a sign of human progress and prosperity, Ignacio Alva said. Traps set with nets caught more prey than spear hunting, he added.
The spider figure also had political significance, Ignacio Alva said. "Any emergent political group would have to be associated with this god."

Richard Burger, an expert on the Chavin culture that followed the Cupisnique, first identified the spider deity in stone bowls found at the Limón Carro site.

The importance of spiders owed partly to their connection with life-giving rain, he said.

"They were associated with divination of rainfall because spiders come out before rain," said Burger, an archaeologist at Yale University who was not involved with the Lambayeque excavation.

The spider deity was also associated with textiles, hunting, war, and power, Burger added. "There is an image of spider deities holding nets filled with decapitated human heads, so there was an analogy with successful warriors and claims of power."

(Related: 80 Ancient 'Cloud Warrior' Skeletons Found in Peru Fort" [September 26, 2007].)

Intense Interaction

The Chavin people who came after the Cupisnique built a temple adjacent to Collud, Zarpan, about three hundred years later.

The new temple finds may help explain a cultural shift from Cupisnique to Chavin, said team leader Walter Alva.

"Cupisnique and Chavin shared the same gods and the same architectural and artistic forms, showing intense religious interaction among the cultures of the [Early] Formative Period from the north coast to the Andes and down to the central Andes," he said.

The temples are similar in size, roughly 1,640 feet (500 meters) long and 984 feet (300 meters) wide.

Collud has a monumental clay staircase with 25 steps, perhaps the inspiration for the later Zarpan temple's clay staircase, Ignacio Alva said.

The Chavin did not build clay structures in the Andes, where significant rainfall threatened their stability. (See Andes photos.)

But clay structures were typical of the Cupisnique culture, which developed on the arid north coast.

It's unknown how the two cultures interacted, if at all, experts say.

"This place is the testimony of two cultures overlapping and will help clarify what is Cupisnique and what is Chavin," Walter Alva said.

Mystery Decline

Pieces of structures found at the site may lead to the discovery of a fourth or fifth temple, according to the team.

(See photos of an ancient "fire temple" found in Peru.)

Yale's Burger wonders if the ongoing excavations will demonstrate what happened to the site as north-coast cultures declined between 900 and 700 B.C.

"The far north coast in earlier times was very important, but it has been largely ignored because there's so little information," Burger said. "This could change that."

"Does this center continue to be important or does it collapse?" he asked. "Does the Cupisnique continue to flourish independently or in close contact with the Chavin?"

Ignacio Alva predicts the site will show that the temple complex transformed itself, but did not collapse.

Egypt: The Case of King/Queen Hatshepsut

AUB's new president, Peter Dorman, who is also a professor of archeology and an expert on ancient Egypt, gave a presentation on October 22 about Hatshepsut, the only woman to reign as a male pharaoh over Ancient Egypt.

Organized by the Society of the Friends of the AUB Museum and held at the AUB Archeological Museum, the illustrated lecture was titled "Gender Trouble in Ancient Egypt: The Case of King/Queen Hatshepsut.” It attracted a large audience which included Lebanon's Minister of Culture HE Tammam Salam and his wife, AUB Trustee Farouk Jabre, and AUB Acting Provost Wadah Nasr.

Whileintroducing President Dorman, Nora Jumblat, the president of the Society of Friends of the AUB Museum, overviewed Dorman’s biography and academic career, emphasizing his specialty in Ancient Egyptian history and archaeology.
In his talk, Dorman highlighted the uniqueness of the reign of Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut who assumed the role of male king of ancient Egypt, through her garb and title, as depicted in the hieroglyphs contemporary to her time of rule. Hatshepsut is the fifth 'pharaoh' of the eighteenth dynasty (1500 BC) of Ancient Egypt and wife of Thutmose II—also Hatshepsut’s half-brother—who died a few years after becoming king without a direct heir to the throne. Thutmose III, Hatshepsut's stepson and nephew, was too young to assume kingship at the time. As a result, Hatshepsut claimed power as queen regent, and then usurped it, by claiming to be the legitimate heir, by virtue of being the daughter of a king. Seven years into her rule, she also assumed the role of male king.

"Hatshepsut holds a unique place in ancient Egyptian history since she is the only woman to rule in the guise of a male ruler," said President Dorman. While surveying the circumstances that led to her becoming queen then assuming legitimacy for rightful heir for kingship, Dorman supported his observations with archaeological evidence - mostly derived from her funerary temple in Dayr Al-Bahri on the banks of the Nile -- that showed the evolution of her role from queen to king.
"Hatshepsut no longer claimed legality for being wife of a deceased king; rather, by being the eldest surviving heir to the throne, and tracing legitimacy to her father in life and death," said Dorman.

In conclusion, Dorman noted that Hatshepsut’s images were intentionally and meticulously desecrated and destroyed after her death by Thutmose III, and experimented with possible reasons for this fact.

"Hatshepsut may have been forgotten, but with research we have been able to recover important aspects of her life," said Dorman.
President Dorman is an international leader in the study of the ancient near east, and in particular the field of Egyptology, in which he is a noted historiographer, epigrapher and philologist.

He is the author and editor of several major books and many articles on the study of ancient Egypt and is probably best known for his historical work on the reign of Hatshepsut and the Amarna period. His most recent monograph, Faces in Clay: Technique, Imagery, and Allusion in a Corpus of Ceramic Sculpture from Ancient Egypt (2002), examines artisanal craftsmanship in light of material culture, iconography, and religious texts. In 2007, he and Betsy M. Bryan of The Johns Hopkins University came out with an edited volume titled Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes.

Since 2002 he has chaired with great success the distinguished Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at one of the world's top research universities, the University of Chicago. Prior to that, he spent nine years (1988-1997) heading the epigraphic efforts at Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt. >From 1977 to 1988, he worked in curatorial positions in the Department of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Remains of pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut identified

CAIRO (AP) — The mummy of an obese woman, who likely suffered from diabetes and liver cancer, has been identified as that of Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's most powerful female pharaoh, Egyptian archaeologists said Wednesday.
Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt in the 15th century B.C., was known for dressing like a man and wearing a false beard. But when her rule ended, all traces of her mysteriously disappeared, including her mummy.

Discovered in 1903 in the Valley of the Kings, the mummy was left on site until two months ago, when it was brought to the Cairo Museum for testing, Egypt's antiquities chief Zahi Hawass said.

DNA bone samples taken from the mummy's pelvic bone and femur are being compared to the mummy of Queen Hatshepsut's grandmother, Amos Nefreteri, said molecular geneticist Yehia Zakaria Gad, who was part of Hawass' team.

The mummy identified as Hatshepsut shows an obese woman, who died in her 50s, probably had diabetes and is also believed to have had liver cancer, Hawass said. Her left hand is positioned against her chest, in a traditional sign of royalty in ancient Egypt.

The discovery, announced Wednesday at the museum in Cairo, has not been independently reviewed by other experts.

While scientists are still matching those mitochondrial DNA sequences, Gad said preliminary results were "very encouraging."

Hawass also said that a molar found in a jar with some of the queen's embalmed organs perfectly matched the mummy.

"We are 100% certain" the mummy is that of Hatshepsut, Hawass told The Associated Press.

Hawass has led the search for Hatshepsut since a year ago, setting up a DNA lab in the basement of the Cairo Museum with an international team of scientists. The study was funded by the Discovery channel, which is to broadcast an exclusive documentary on it in July.

Molecular biologist Scott Woodward, director of the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation in Salt Lake City, was cautious ahead of Wednesday's announcement.

"It's a very difficult process to obtain DNA from a mummy," said Woodward, who has done such research. "To make a claim as to a relationship, you need other individuals from which you have obtained DNA, to make a comparison between the DNA sequences."

Such DNA material would typically come from parents or grandparents. With female mummies, the most common type of DNA to look for is the mitochondrial DNA that reveals maternal lineage, Woodward said.

"What possible other mummies are out there, they would have to be related to Hatshepsut," he said. "It's a difficult process, but the recovery of DNA from 18th Dynasty mummies is certainly possible."

Molecular biologist Paul Evans of the Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, said the discovery could indeed be remarkable.

"Hatshepsut is an individual who has a unique place in Egypt's history. To have her identified is on the same magnitude as King Tut's discovery," Evans told the AP by phone from Utah.

Hatshepsut is believed to have stolen the throne from her young stepson, Thutmose III. Her rule of about 21 years was the longest among ancient Egyptian queens, ending in 1453 B.C.

Hatshepsut's funerary temple is located in ancient Thebes, on the west bank of the Nile in today's Luxor, a multi-collonaded sandstone temple built to serve as tribute to her power. Surrounding it are the Valley of Kings and the Valley of the Queens, the burial places of Egypt's pharaohs and their wives.

But after Hatshepsut's death, her name was obliterated from the records in what is believed to have been her stepson's revenge.

She was one of the most prolific builder pharaohs of ancient Egypt, commissioning hundreds of projects throughout both Upper and Lower Egypt. Almost every major museum in the world today has a collection of Hatshepsut statuary.

British archaeologist Howard Carter worked on excavating Hatshepsut's tomb before discovering the tomb of the boy-king, Tutankhamun, whose treasure of gold has become a symbol of ancient Egypt's splendor.

http://usatodaytv.feedroom.com/index.jsp?fr_story=FRTHEBRAIN201923
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/27/egyptqueen_arc.html

Inca Elite Imported Diverse "Staff" to Run Machu Picchu

José Orozco


Inca nobility at Machu Picchu relied on special, permanent servants from the far corners of the empire to manage the royal estate, according to a new study of human skeletons found buried at the site.

Machu Picchu sits high in the Peruvian Andes about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of the former Inca capital of Cusco (see map).
Royal retainers, known as yanacona, may have been brought to the site from as far away as South America's Pacific Coast, the northern highlands, and the area around Lake Titicaca near Peru's border with Bolivia, the study says.

Determining the geographic origins of yanacona may help researchers better understand how the Inca practice of paying tributes with labor helped shape the empire's social classes.

For some people this work was temporary, but for yanacona it meant leaving home and family behind forever, noted lead study author Bethany Turner, an anthropologist at Georgia State University.

Yanacona candidates probably had little room for negotiation, Turner added.

"It was not necessarily forced, but you wouldn't turn it down lightly," she said.

Bustling City

The Inca Empire lasted from roughly 1430 to 1532, when the Spanish reached Peru, Turner said.

The empire stretched from present-day southern Colombia to what is now central Chile, and the Inca largely allowed their subjects to maintain their languages and cultural traditions.

Many scientists believe the city of Machu Picchu, which was occupied starting around 1450, was built on orders from Inca ruler Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui to serve as a government palace and administrative center.

While nobility were not permanent residents at the estate, visitors would probably have seen a city buzzing with the activity of yanacona, Turner said.

Guillermo Cock, an Andean expert based in Lima who was not involved in the new study, said that taking yanacona from diverse regions probably helped Inca rulers break ties of allegiance between villagers and their local authorities.

"The greater the distance, the greater the rupture between the yanacona and their lords and the greater their dependence on their Inca authority," Cock said.

But evidence suggests the yanacona were treated with honor and privileges to help soften the blow and create new loyalties, he said.

For example, the retainers were given gifts such as textiles and agricultural lands, and their bones showed no signs of hard physical labor.

The servants likely performed agricultural work, administrative jobs, served in defense, and generally maintained the site, study author Turner said.

Machu Picchu seems to have been abandoned after the Spanish conquest, and it was apparently ignored by the invaders. Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham brought Machu Picchu to worldwide attention after local Indians led him to the site in 1911.

During the initial excavations of the site in 1912 and 1913, archaeologists found three cemeteries containing 177 bodies.

Later analysis of the graves and objects found with the bodies suggests the people buried there were not elite, leading experts to theorize that they were yanacona.

(Related: "Rare Mass Tombs Discovered Near Machu Picchu" [September 15, 2008].)

For the new study, Turner and colleagues looked at ratios of oxygen, strontium, and lead isotopes in the teeth of 74 individuals from those graves.

The team looked for the isotopes in tooth layers that develop when a person is three to four years old.

Comparing those results with analyses of food and water sources near Machu Picchu helped determine whether the people were native to the area or were likely immigrants.

The analysis shows "widely different backgrounds in where [the people] lived and what their diets were," Turner said, although she cautions that her team's study is just an initial attempt at uncovering the yanacona's origins.

She and colleagues will publish their work in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Efficient Labor

Cock, the Andean expert, said that as permanent servants, yanacona were extremely useful to the Inca Empire.

If the Inca needed a labor force, they could just pick from the yanacona instead of requesting new temporary workers from communities under their power.

"The yanacona … gave them direct access to labor, making it a much more efficient system," Cock said.

In fact, the state's success owed a great deal to the yanacona, said Fernando Astete, director of the Machu Picchu Archaeological Park.

"Without the work of yanacona, the Inca state would never have developed," Astete said. "Their work was the foundation of Inca productivity."

New Moon Rover Mixes Old-School Smarts With Latest Tech

Victoria Jaggard

With six-wheel drive, active suspension, and computerized navigation, a new battery-powered truck being field tested this week in Arizona sounds like the next generation of sport-utility vehicles
But when the final model rolls out in 2019, only an exclusive group of highly trained professionals will get to drive it—the next astronauts to land on the moon.

The new lunar rover, informally known as the Chariot, is a prototype being developed as part of NASA's Constellation program, which aims to put people back on the moon by 2020.

The current version combines 35 years of technological advances with lessons learned from the original "moon buggies" used during the Apollo missions of the 1970s.

One of the biggest modifications is an optional pressurized cabin that comes fully equipped with beds, a pantry, a waste-management system, and a pair of space suits, allowing astronauts to live and work "on the road" for up to two weeks.

"It's important to keep the crew happy," noted Mike Gernhardt, a veteran NASA astronaut who is helping design the Chariot at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

"As long as the food's good and the seats are comfortable, you can put up with a lot."

Moon Buggy

NASA sent up its first lunar roving vehicle—an open, four-wheeled buggy—as part of the Apollo 15 mission in 1971.

Roving crew members collected a variety of samples to bring back to Earth, including the Genesis rock, a chunk of the lunar crust believed to date back four billion years to the birth of the moon.

NASA ultimately sent four rovers to the moon during the Apollo program, and the hardy vehicles were generally hailed as successes.
But some aspects of the buggies' design proved to be less than ideal.

For example, a T-shaped stick in between the seats was the only steering control. Like an Atari joystick, the system was simple and intuitive: Push forward to go forward, backward to brake, and left or right to turn.
The placement, however, was a tight fit for astronauts in their bulky space suits. (See related photos of a skintight next-generation space suit designed at MIT.)

"Every time Charlie bumped my arm, I moved the steering wheel," said John Young, a retired NASA astronaut who, with colleague Charles Duke, drove a lunar rover during Apollo 16 in 1972.

Also, the rover's range was limited by its two nonrechargeable 36-volt batteries.

"You can't run out of electricity on the moon, that would be a killer," Young said. The farthest any of the four buggies ever got from the lunar module was 4.7 miles (7.6 kilometers).

In addition, the buggy became unstable near its top speed of 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) an hour, noted Robert Ambrose, NASA's lead engineer for mobility of the new lunar rover.

"It started doing something called 'porpoising' and they sorta lost control of it," Ambrose said, referring to the older vehicle's tendency to bounce and tilt wildly.

Does It Come With Leather Seats?

Ambrose and other engineers have been designing the new rover in part based on tips from Apollo astronauts.

To overcome the porpoising problem, for instance, the Chariot has a longer wheelbase and is outfitted with the same automatic stability control used to keep today's sport-utility vehicles from rolling over.

Steering is controlled by a computerized navigation system, and all six wheels can turn in any direction or be individually lifted for greater maneuverability.

The craft also has two gears—first gear tops out at 3 miles (5 kilometers) an hour, while second gear can safely reach 12 miles (20 kilometers) an hour.

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries allow the craft to venture up to 62 miles (100 kilometers) and back before needing a pit stop at a solar-power station.

One of the more unusual innovations is a pair of slip-on space suits attached to the back of the pressurized cabin.

Rather than taking up room with a full-size airlock, a "plainclothes" astronaut simply slides into an empty suit, pulls a lever to close the hatch and detach, and walks away.

The process can then be done in reverse to re-enter the cabin.

"This is a totally different way of doing business in spacewalking," Ambrose said.

Road Test

The rover will need to pass several rounds of technical tests and budget reviews between now and 2019 before the design is finalized.

The entire Constellation program, which is slated to cost U.S. $104 billion, has already hit a few roadblocks, including a one-year delay for the first crewed test flight of the launch vehicle and lander, originally slated for 2013.

It also remains to be seen what a new U.S. president will mean for the project.

Last year Senator Barack Obama's campaign announced plans for an $18-billion-a-year education reform that would be paid for, in part, by delaying Constellation for five years.

And while Senator John McCain's campaign says that he has supported funding for a return to the moon, the presidential hopeful recently said he would reduce the federal deficit by freezing for a year all discretionary funding—NASA included.

For now the space agency is holding firm to its 2020 deadline, and projects like the lunar rover are continuing forward with safety and durability as top concerns.

"It'll probably be two or three iterations of design [before] we're going to have it nailed well enough to ask astronauts to risk their lives," Ambrose said.

The field tests underway this weekend will give an astronaut and a geologist a chance to take the current version of the Chariot for a day-long spin in the Arizona desert, simulating the rocky, dusty conditions they would encounter on the moon.

In addition to testing the rover's technology, the road trip will give its passengers a chance to rate the vehicle for comfort—a major safety concern.

"I'm no sociologist," Ambrose said, "but I imagine that if you're cramped and uncomfortable, you're not going to be a very good driver."

Sunlike Star Vibrations Seen for First Time

Anne Minard

A first look at the surfaces of three nearby stars shows that the hot bodies are vibrating faster than our sun and have smoother exteriors, according to new research.

The work could help astronomers get a better picture of minute changes in stellar vibrations, which would improve our understanding of how sunlike stars operate inside.
Also, knowing more about subtle changes in the surfaces of other stars can help scientists better predict sun storms, which can damage orbiting satellites and interrupt power lines on Earth.

Studies of the sun's vibrations, or helio-seismology, have been yielding clues about our star's interior structure for decades. (Related: "Sun Gets Fatter 'Waist' During Magnetic Peaks" [October 2, 2008].)

Granulation, or bubbling, of the stellar surface can reveal how heat is being transported through the uppermost layers of gas.

But until recently, vibrations and surface features in more distant stars have been too hard to detect, so scientists have relied on computer simulations based on data from the sun.

"In the last few years, observers have started to see acoustic spectra from solar-type stars that are comparable in quality to what was seen in the sun nearly 30 years ago," said Rachel Howe, a scientist at the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona, who was not involved with the new study.

"These measurements will allow observers to probe the rotation and other properties of stars that are similar to our sun but of different sizes and ages."

Lead study author Eric Michel, a stellar physicist with France's National Center for Scientific Research, said his team's data should help refine previous computer predictions.

"The phenomena we observe are of the order of what we expected, and we will be able to measure them with precision," Michel said via email. "We are now looking into the stars!"

Margin of Error

All three stars observed for the new study are within 200 light-years of Earth. They are similar to the sun but are hotter and slightly more massive.

Using France's Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits (CoRoT) space telescope, Michel and a bevy of colleagues from Europe and South America measured the stars' light output over a 60-day period.

CoRoT reads stellar vibrations as changes in brightness.
The team found that the three stars have vibrations that are 50 percent more energetic than the sun's.

The stars also have surface granulations about three times finer than the sun's.

The observed oscillations are close to what astronomers predicted based on computer models, but are about 25 percent weaker than expected.

"This is not so bad and even gratifying," Michel said, adding that the results fall within the margins of uncertainty built into the models.

The data are described in this week's issue of the journal Science.

The study authors add that the results would not have been possible using observatories on the ground, because Earth's atmosphere obscures minute variations in starlight.

For them, the new data illustrate the importance of continued space-based observations.

(See the first 3-D images of the sun taken in 2007 by a pair of orbiting telescopes.)

Michael Montgomery, a stellar physicist at the University of Texas in Austin, wrote a commentary on the new study that also appears this week in Science.

"This [paper]," he said, "bodes well for the future of space-based seismology programs while simultaneously challenging us to refine our models of these stars."

Drugs Found in Hair of Ancient Andean Mummies

Charles Q. Choi


The first hard evidence of psychoactive drug use in the ancient Andes has been discovered in mummies' hair, a new study says.

The finding confirms that predecessors of the Inca known as the Tiwanaku used mind-altering substances, and hints that the civilization relied on far-reaching trade networks to obtain the drugs.

Scientists recently analyzed 32 naturally mummified Tiwanaku bodies discovered in northern Chile's Azapa Valley, which lies in the Atacama Desert.

The researchers discovered a compound called harmine in hairs from an adult male and a one-year-old baby, who both date to sometime between A.D. 800 and 1200. Harmine can help humans absorb hallucinogens and may be a powerful antidepressant.

"These individuals probably ingested harmine in therapeutic or medicinal practices, some maybe related to pregnancy and childbirth," said study co-author Juan Pablo Ogalde, a chemical archaeologist at the University of Tarapacá in Arica, Chile.

"However, it is possible also that consumption of harmine was involved in religious rituals, said Ogalde, whose research appeared online October 14 in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

X-rays showed that the adult male—who was buried with items of social prestige such as panpipes, a four-pointed hat, and a snuffing tray—had damage near the nose, perhaps from sniffing.

As for the baby, Ogalde speculated that the mother had consumed the drug and passed it on to her offspring during pregnancy or breast-feeding.

"The fact this mind-altering substance was found even with a one-year-old shows how much a part of their life it was," said archaeologist Alexei Vranich of the University of California, Los Angeles, who did not participate in the study.

Habitual Users

The empire of the Tiwanaku once ranged from what is now northern Chile to southern Peru. (See a map of South America.) Between roughly A.D. 500 and 1000, they expanded from their origins on the Bolivian shores of Lake Titicaca via religious control and military might.

Elaborately decorated snuffing kits have been found in hundreds of Tiwanaku tombs. Archaeologists think these trays and tubes were used to inhale herbs, perhaps ceremonially.

Some snuff kits have been found bearing powder from the vilca tree, whose seeds are rich in hallucinogens. Also, X-rays of Tiwanaku skulls have in many cases revealed nasal damage that was likely caused by frequent sniffing.

The incorporation of snuffing imagery into Tiwanaku ceramics, woodwork, stonework, and textiles have been seen to suggest that snuffing rituals played an important role in Tiwanaku culture.

Still, no traces of hallucinogens had been found in Tiwanaku mummies until now, perhaps because the compounds broken down over time.

Drug Trade

The only plant in South America known to contain harmine is the jungle vine Banisteriopsis caapi, which is used by modern-day Amazonian natives to help make an infusion known as ayahuasca for shamanic rituals. (Read more about ayahuasca.)

This rain forest plant does not grow along the Atacama coast, suggesting extensive trade networks that brought the vine from as far as the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon is roughly 300 miles (500 kilometers) from the Azapa Valley, study co-author Ogalde said.

"A lot of people had suggested contact across the Amazon and the Atacama desert, and it's nice to have more hard data for that theory," said UCLA's Vranich.

The Tiwanaku may have actively searched for exotic hallucinogens to draw others to their culture, Vranich said.

"One of the sources of the mystique of the Tiwanaku—one of the reasons a lot of people may have subscribed to their religion—would have been such a mind-altering substance," he explained.

"It would have been a tremendous draw, especially when the rest of normal life in the rural Andes during that period would have been comparatively quite mundane and dull."

Britain's Oldest Toy Found Buried with Stonehenge Baby?

James Owen in London

A carved animal figurine found buried alongside a prehistoric baby at Stonehenge may represent Britain's earliest known toy, researchers say.
The unique chalk relic of a hedgehog or pig, thought to be at least 2,000 years old, was unearthed in September near the stone monument on southern England's Salisbury Plain.

"Whether it's a hedgehog or a pig you can argue about, but I like the hedgehog idea myself," said the dig's co-leader, Joshua Pollard of the University of Bristol.
The Bronze Age figurine was likely made as a toy or in memory of the baby being stillborn or dying in infancy, the archaeologist said.

The discovery was made during the Stonehenge Riverside Project, a seven-year archaeological investigation of the Stonehenge area supported by the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. The burial was uncovered during the excavation of an ancient palisade—or timber wall—and ditch, both of which are thought to have stretched eastward from the megalithic circle.
Archaeologists have speculated that the estimated 6-meter-tall (19.5-foot-tall) timber structure served as a boundary fence to Stonehenge.

"We thought it might be related to the stone [portions] of the monument, but in fact it turned out to be a much later feature," Pollard said.

Very Rare Find
Evidence of toys during this period in British history is "extremely scant," Pollard said. "In fact, it's very rare to find any kind of representational art in British prehistory—almost to the extent where you get the impression there's a bit of a taboo on making images of animals or people."
The young child's grave, tentatively dated to between 800 B.C. to 20 B.C., included a pottery vessel, which may have contained food intended for the child's journey to the afterlife, the team said. The excavation of the palisade also revealed the body of a second infant and the skeleton of a sheep or goat.
A pile of stones had been placed over the animal's head, indicating a sacrificial burial, Pollard said.

While it's possible the two infants were human sacrifices, more than likely they died naturally, he said.
"You're dealing with a period when infant mortality was very high, so there would have been a lot of natural death," Pollard added.
The newfound artifact "is, as far as we know, without parallel," according to Stonehenge expert Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine.
Pitts agrees that it appears to have been "made for a child as a personal toy."
However he strongly disagrees with those who say it depicts a hedgehog.
"I would say it's without doubt a pig," said Pitts, who noted that both domestic and wild pigs were widespread in the region at the time.
Later, from the start of the Iron Age in Britain, between 700 and 800 B.C., animal figurines become relatively commonplace, Pitts added.

"And once we get into historical times, we know the pig is quite important in Celtic mythology, though not—to my knowledge—hedgehogs," he said.

Stonehenge Fence?

Initial results indicate the palisade—of which only a short timber section was found—was constructed 1,000 to 1,500 years after Stonehenge's famed stone circle. The ditch appears to form part of a longer boundary system that runs for about 2 miles (3.2 kilometers), dig co-leader Pollard said.
The new findings hint that Stonehenge was still in use as a religious site until much later than previously suspected.
"The monument is in a reserved part of the landscape that was probably being regarded with a degree of veneration or significance," Pollard said.

"It's telling us something about the attitude of later communities to the presence of what by that stage would have been quite an ancient monument," he added.
But Pitts of British Archaeology said that the new dating evidence suggests the palisade and ditch may have little connection to Stonehenge.
"It may actually have more to do with a network of new land-boundary divisions that spread across Salisbury Plain, in common with much of southern England in the Bronze Age after Stonehenge was going out of active use," Pitts said.

People and animals were often buried in such ditches, he said.
"For example, we have a number of curious burials of cattle and horse heads and parts like that in ditches elsewhere on Salisbury Plain. It may be part of the way in which boundaries are marked as land is being parceled up into different units."

Tape measure: X-rays detected from Scotch tape

By MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer Malcolm Ritter, Ap Science Writer – Wed Oct 22,

AP

This undated composite image provided by the UCLA Laboratory of Low Temperatures and Acoustics,

NEW YORK – Just two weeks after a Nobel Prize highlighted theoretical work on subatomic particles, physicists are announcing a startling discovery about a much more familiar form of matter: Scotch tape. It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.
Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study co-author says.
"We were very surprised," said Juan Escobar. "The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous."

Escobar, a graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles, reports the work with UCLA colleagues in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
He suggests that with some refinements, the process might be harnessed for making inexpensive X-ray machines for paramedics or for places where electricity is expensive or hard to get. After all, you could peel tape or do something similar in such machines with just human

Gigantic River Cave Revealed in Laos

The Xe Bang Fai River cave's gaping downstream entrance was used as a daily staging point for the February 2008 trip, funded by the National Geographic Society's Expeditions Council.

The cave has two known entrancesone upstream and one downstream.

The exploration team spent ten days surveying and photographing the cave, communicating in the darkness by walkie-talkie, and traveling by lightweight, inflatable kayaks.

The adventurers' longest day in the cave lasted 17 hours.



The Xe Bang Fai River cave is crowded with outsize features.

First traversed on a bamboo raft by a French explorer in 1905, the cave, known locally as Tham Khoun Xe and occasionally visited by tourists, went unstudied for 90 years as war and political turmoil in Laos kept researchers out of the Southeast Asian country.

A French team returned briefly in 1995, but little useful data was gleaned. Caver John Pollack staged his first expedition to the site in 2006



A spelunker is dwarfed by draperies made of calcite deposits about two miles (three kilometers) from the Xe Bang Fai River cave's downstream entrance.

Caver John Pollack's 2008 team consisted of four Canadian and four American researchers aided by several Laotian guides and assistants.

The expedition's photographer Dave Bunnell shuttled mounds of photographic equipment into the caves.

"He'd spend all day setting up flashes and strobes, sometimes shooting the same shot 18, 20 times over," Pollack said.



Calcium carbonate formations (above) called gour or rimstone pools, form in the rainy season as water seeps in and collects in ponds, over time leaving complex deposits.

Explorer John Pollack's team found cube-shaped "cave pearls" in some of the cave's gour formations that were up to 12.6 inches (32 centimeters) in circumference–potentially a world record, he said.

Pollack's team chose February, the middle of Laos's dry season, for its 2008 expedition to the Xe Bang Fai River cave.

Still river levels reached 12.8 cubic yards (9.8 cubic meters) per second.

During the August-September monsoon, the Xe Bang Fai River roars through the cave at up to 1,300 cubic yards (1,000 cubic meters) per second



Cave explorers nicknamed this large room "the Cathedral" for its high, vaulted ceiling.

Explorer John Pollack calls the Xe Bang Fai River cave "an underground K2," which, based on the volume of water that passes through the cave and the size of its passages, is likely one of the largest river caves on Earth.

Expedition co-leader Bob Osburn is producing a highly detailed map of the cavern, and Pollack expects an article on the team's discoveries to appear in the journal of the National Speleological Society in 2009



October 20, 2008–A cave explorer stands before an imposing stalagmite–made of mineral deposits–near an entrance to the Xe Bang Fai River cave in central Laos.

An expedition in February 2008, co-led by veteran caver John Pollack, comprehensively mapped and photographed the 5.9-mile (9.5-kilometer) length of the little-known cavern for the first time.

The spelunking team encountered some of the largest rooms and most impressive structures of any river cave on Earth, Pollack said.

A river cave is any cave with an active water source flowing through it.

Everything about the cave is big–from its towering entrances to its phobia-inducing spiders, which can be 10 inches (25 centimeters) across, Pollack added.

"It's also extremely well decorated with spectacular formations," Pollack said.

Half-Hot, Half-Cold Planets Have Supersonic Jet Streams

Anne Minard

Jupiter-like exoplanets—planets outside our solar system—have supersonic jet streams that transport heat from their sunny side to their dark side, a new study says.

These gas giants orbit extremely close to nearby stars.
'Hot Jupiters' Could Give Rise to Earthlike Worlds, Study Says (September 7, 2006)
"Because these planets are so close to their stars, we think they're tidally locked, with one side permanently in starlight and the other side permanently in darkness," said lead study author Adam Showman, a planetary scientist of the University of Arizona.

"So, if there were no winds, the dayside [the side of a planet in sunlight] would be extremely hot, and the nightside would be extremely cold."

But when the winds pick up, they bring scorching heat—sometimes even on the cool side—that's hotter than anything seen in our own solar system.

The exoplanets "are pretty crazy places. Expect supersonic winds and dayside temperatures hot enough to melt lead and rocks," Showman said in a statement.

The work was presented recently at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Division for Planetary Sciences, and will appear in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal.

Extreme Heat

Showman and colleagues combined Spitzer and Hubble space telescope observations with computer models to puzzle together weather and climate patterns on the gas giants.

About 300 Jupiter-like planets have been discovered around stars, and, in most cases, astronomers know their masses and orbits.

For a handful of the brightest planets, space-based telescopes such as Spitzer have sent back images that reveal surface temperatures.

Those images are revealing "alien" climate regimes, researchers say.

"These planets are 20 times closer to their star than Earth is to the sun, and so they are truly blasted by starlight," Showman said.

'Hot Jupiters' Could Give Rise to Earthlike Worlds, Study Says
Their dayside temperatures reach up to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,648 degrees Celsius).

Fierce Winds

But one planet is tipping researchers off to a different point of view.

The planet HD 189733b is 63 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Vulpecula.

Its star, HD 189733, is visible with binoculars from Earth, but only the most powerful space telescopes can see the planet.

Here, the nightside temperature exceeds 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit (704 degrees Celsius).

Researchers had proposed that winds carry heat from the dayside to the nightside and warm it up—but were unable to explain how.

Showman and colleagues performed computer simulations that, for the first time, coupled weather activity with a realistic representation for how starlight is absorbed and how heat is lost to space.

The models suggest that to carry the heat the planet must have jet streams with speeds reaching 7,000 miles (11,265 kilometers) per hour.

"You're talking about winds fast enough to carry you in a hot air balloon from San Francisco to New York in 25 minutes," Showman said.

The computers predict that the winds move predominantly from west to east, pushing the heat away from the region that's receiving the most starlight.

"According to the observations, the hottest region on the planet is not 'high noon' but eastward of that by maybe 30 degrees of longitude," Showman said.

"Our simulations are the first to explain why that phenomenon occurs."

Still Learning

Weather studies on exoplanets are constantly evolving, said Alfred Vidal-Madjar, an astrophysicist at the Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris in France who was not involved with the new study.

"Everyone knows [it] is certainly not the final word," he said.
Vidal-Madjar said true tests of the models will come from studies of exoplanet atmospheres, particularly when they pass in front of their parent stars and become backlit relative to Earth- or space-based telescopes.

David Charbonneau, an astrophysicist with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is a co-author on the new paper.

He said it's remarkable "that we are actually able to study the weather patterns on planets orbiting other stars.

"In that sense, they are beginning to feel much more like the planets of [our] solar system, with distinct personalities that we have come to know and love over time."

Lighthouse of Alexandria

Lighthouse of Alexandria (was a tower built in the 3rd century BC (between 285 and 247 BC) on the island of Pharos in Alexandria, Egypt to serve as that port's landmark, and later, its lighthouse.

With a height variously estimated at between 115 and 150 m (380 and 490 ft) it was among the tallest man-made structures on Earth for many centuries, and was identified as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by Antipater of Sidon. It may have been the third tallest building after the two Great Pyramids (of Khufu and Khafra) for its entire life. Some scholars estimate that would make the tower the tallest building up to the 14th century.
Pharos was a small island just off the coast of Alexandria. It was linked to the mainland by a man-made connection named the Heptastadion, which thus formed one side of the city's harbor. As the Egyptian coast is very flat and lacking in the kind of landmark used at the time for navigation, a marker of some sort at the mouth of the harbour was deemed necessary - a function the Pharos was initially designed to serve. Use of the building as a lighthouse, with a fire and reflective mirrors at the top, is thought to date to around the 1st century AD, during the Roman period. Prior to that time the Pharos served solely as a landmark or day beacon.


Construction and destruction

The lighthouse was completed in the 3rd century B.C., after having been initiated by Satrap (governor) Ptolemy I Soter, Egypt's first Macedonian ruler and a general of Alexander the Great. After Alexander died unexpectedly at age 32, Ptolemy Soter (Saviour, named so by the inhabitants of Rhodes) made himself king in 305 B.C. and ordered the construction of the Pharos shortly thereafter. The building was finished during the reign of his son, Ptolemy Philadelphos.

According to legend, Sostratus was forbidden by Ptolemy from putting his name on his work. But the architect left the following inscription on the base's walls nonetheless: "Sostratus, the son of Dexiphanes, the Cnidian, dedicated (or erected) this to the Saviour gods, on behalf of those who sail the seas"; the original Greek inscription "ΣΟΣΤΡΑΤΟΣ ΔΕΞΙΦΑΝΟΥ ΚΝΙΔΙΟΣ ΘΕΟΙΣ ΣΩΤΕΡΣΙΝ ΥΠΕΡ ΤΩΝ ΠΛΩΙΖΟΜΕΝΩΝ" literally means: "Sostratos of Dexiphanes [meaning: son of Dexiphanes] the Cnidian to Saviour Gods for the seafarers (or seafaring [ones])". These words were hidden under a layer of plaster, on top of which was chiseled another inscription honoring Ptolemy the king as builder of the Pharos. After centuries the plaster wore away, revealing the name of Sostratus.

The lighthouse was badly damaged in the earthquake of 956, then again in 1303 and 1323. The fullest description of it comes from the Arab traveler Abou Haggag Youssef Ibn Mohammed el-Andaloussi who visited the structure as a tourist in 1166. His description runs: "The Pharos rises at the end of the island. The building is square, about 8.5m each side. The sea surrounds the Pharos except on the east and south sides. This platform measures, along its sides, from the tip up to the foot of the Pharos walls, 6.5m in height. However, on the sea side, it is larger because of the construction and is steeply inclined like the side of a mountain. As the height of the platform increases towards the walls of the Pharos its width narrows until it arrives at the measurements above. On this side it is strongly built, the stones being well shaped and laid along with a rougher finish than elsewhere on the building. This part of the building that I have just described is recent because on this side the ancient work needed to be replaced. On the seaward south side, there is an ancient inscription which I cannot read; it is not a proper inscription because the forms of the letters are carried out in hard black stone.

The combination of the sea and the air has worn away the background stone and the letters stand out in relief because of their harshness. The A measures a little over 54cm. The top of the M stands out like a huge hole in a copper boiler. The other letters are generally of the same size. The doorway to the Pharos is high up. A ramp about 183m long used to lead up to it. This ramp rests on a series of curved arches; my companion got beneath one of the arches and stretched out his arms but he was not able to reach the sides. There are 16 of these arches, each gradually getting higher until the doorway is reached, the last one being especially high."

Fort Qaitbey was built on the site of the Pharos in the 15th Century, using some of its fallen masonry.There are ancient claims the light from the lighthouse could be seen from up to 35 mi (56 km) away. Unconfirmed legends claim the light from Pharos could burn enemy ships before they reached shore.

Constructed from large blocks of light-coloured stone, the tower was made up of three stages: a lower square section with a central core, a middle octagonal section, and, at the top, a circular section. At its apex was positioned a mirror which reflected sunlight during the day; a fire was lit at night. Extant Roman coins struck by the Alexandrian mint show that a statue of a triton was positioned on each of the building's four corners. A statue of Poseidon stood atop the tower during the Roman period.

The Pharos' walls were strengthened in order to withstand the pounding of the waves through the use of molten lead to hold its masonry together[citation needed], and possibly as a result the building survived the longest of the Seven Wonders - with the sole exception of the Great Pyramid of Giza. It was still standing when the Muslim traveller Ibn Jubayr visited the city in 1183. He said of it that: "Description of it falls short, the eyes fail to comprehend it, and words are inadequate, so vast is the spectacle." It appears that in his time, there was a church located on the top

The two earthquakes in 1303 and 1323, damaged the lighthouse to the extent that the Arab traveler Ibn Battuta reported no longer being able to enter the ruin. Even the stubby remnant disappeared in 1480, when the then-Sultan of Egypt, Qaitbay, built a medieval fort on the former location of the building, using some of the fallen stone. The remnants of the Pharos that were incorporated into the walls of Fort Qaitbey are clearly visible due to their excessive size in comparison to surrounding masonry.

Recent archaeological research

Some remains of the lighthouse were found on the floor of Alexandria's Eastern Harbour by divers in 1994. More of the remains have subsequently been revealed by satellite imaging

A Nova program chronicled the underwater discovery of the fabled Pharos lighthouse.It is possible to go diving and see the ruins.

http://www.greece.org/Alexandria/Pharos/
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pharoslighthouse.htm

Oldest Insect Imprint Found

October 17, 2008—Fossil hunters searching woods behind a suburban shopping mall have scored a basement bargain: a piece of rock with the oldest known impression of a flying insect (above).

The 300-million-year old specimen—from the Carboniferous period—is an extremely rare find, according to the Tufts University team.

That's because bodies of flying insects are usually not preserved due to their softer, fragile nature, said Richard J. Knecht, who made the discovery with colleague Jake Benner.

Scientists more often find the remains of wings, which are not digested easily by predators, Knecht told National Geographic News.

(Read about the oldest bee found trapped in amber.)

The 3-inch (7.6-centimeter) insect—which resembles a modern mayfly—likely stayed in the mud long enough to move its leg before flying off, leaving a perfect impression. "It really is like winning the lottery," Knecht said.

The team found the fossil in a rock outcrop in North Attleboro, Massachusetts.

They had decided to scout out a fossil-rich area mentioned in a long-forgotten 1929 masters thesis by a Brown University student—an area that's now sure to yield more fossils, Knecht said.

Benner and Knecht presented their find in September at the Second International Congress on Ichnology—the study of fossilized animal tracks—in Kraków, Poland.