Great Caesar's Ghost! It's the New Year Again!

It's a remarkable thing, this celebration of the New Year. It's not like things are suddenly far better or far worse just because the calendar ticks over and we add one to the year. It's more of a functional thing these days, as the record-keeping and data-crunching changes one of the four digits in the year and we keep going one day at a time.

The recognition of a New Year, however, despite Dick Clark's longevity to the contrary, is not at all a new thing. Ancient people recognized a new year. The Babylonians, who knew a thing or two about astronomy, marked the first New Moon after the Vernal Equinox. This was not long into spring, which was a time of renewal of crops and planting and all manner of other survival-minded things. 

The Romans, not wanting to seem inferior, followed in those footsteps, so much so that they marked the new year in spring as well — which, by our way of thinking, is nowhere near January 1. (I challenge you to find a part of the planet that has its January 1 in the middle of spring.)

But the Romans, ever wanting to improve, began to play around with the calendar, with this and that emperor moving things along ever so slightly, in the middle of naming buildings and statuary after themselves. Soon, it was all out of whack.

Leave it to Julius Caesar to fix things. (He fixed a lot of other things as well, among them the whole of Roman law and the border with Gaul &151; after he got through with the Gauls, they didn't need a border anymore.)

Caesar declared that January 1 was the start of the new year. This was just fine, if you look at things in a certain way, as Caesar often did, because January celebrated Janus, the god of beginnings. So the first day of January began the new year. (Caesar's moving the beginning of the new year meant that one year had 445 days in it, but that's beside the point.)

With the passing of the Roman Empire came the Dark Ages, and the ignoring of the celebration of New Year, for a few hundred years, at least. But things got back on track in the Middle Ages, and we've been celebrating the beginning of each new year ever since — even if it's in the middle of winter (or summer, in the Southern Hemisphere). One exception to this, of course, would be the British Empire, which took until 1751, when the Empire was beginning to be on its way out, that the beginning of the year shifted from March 1 to the more commonly used January 1. 

Other cultures, mainly Eastern, still celebrate the New Year on other days. Western tradition, however, has the vast majority of New Year's celebrations on the first day of January. Caesar would be proud.

Ancient Ill Will Set in Stone

Enmity can survive through the ages.

That's the message from the discoverers of an ancient Greek text filled with a curse against, not the king or any figure of authority, but a common grocer. Seems one of the people living in the city of Antioch along about 1,700 years ago had a grudge against a certain Babylas, so much that it resulted in a curse being set in stone — in this case, a tablet with cuneiform carved into it.

We don't have the carver's name (or even initials), so we can't trace the curse back to the source, but we do know — thanks to the efforts of a translator who worked for two years (because of the fragility of the tablet) — what the curse said:

"O thunder-and-lightning-hurling Iao, strike, bind, bind together Babylas the greengrocer. As you struck the chariot of Pharaoh, so strike his [Babylas'] offensiveness."

You have to love the directness of the language: straight appeal to the god-like figure (in this case, the Greek word for Yahweh, Iao) and then the reference to one of the Old Testament's signature events, the death of the Pharaoh in the un-parting of the Red Sea. This guy is not messing around.

But he's just getting warmed up.

The text goes on thus:

"O thunder—and-lightning-hurling Iao, as you cut down the firstborn of Egypt, cut down his [livestock?] as much as..."

Sadly, just as the writer was getting warmed up, his carving knife broke or his efforts were interrupted by war or a family dispute or something similar — or, the more likely occurrence, he wrote as much as he liked but what we have is what has survived down through the years.

Still, it's powerful stuff, at least in the asking. He's obviously winding up again with the second hit from above, the reference to thunder and lightning raining down on the suggested target of Iao's wrath. He's also gone back to the Exodus again and brought in the killing of the firstborn sons of all Egypt. This is the thing that eventually unhardened the Pharaoh's heart enough for him to let the Israelites go, at least for a time, before pursuing them into the path of the Red Sea.

The guy who did the translating, a staffer at the University of Washington, said he hadn't encountered a curse of a grocer before. There's a first time for everything, apparently. 

Also lost to the sands of time is the result of this ancient man's imploring. Did Babylas, whoever he was, suffer the slings and lightning bolts of outraged Iao? Who knows. It wasn't written down — or at least it hasn't been found yet.

Ancient People, Modern Beds

We tend to think of the bed as a (historically speaking) relatively recent innovation. Not even close.

Try 77,000 years ago.

That's the figure put forth by a group of archaeologists at a dig in South Africa. At a place called Sibudu, these scientists have discovered very, very old mats of grass and plants on the floor of a rock shelter. The people who crafted these beds covered them with wild quince leaves, which are naturally insect-repellent — further evidence that these were the Stone Age equivalent of bedrolls. (This theory is not as far-fetched as it sounds — certain indigenous people in Africa use these leaves for the same purpose.)

So the warriors of old weren't as rough-and-ready as we once thought. What's the big deal? Well, for the previous oldest bedding on record, you'll have to add about 37,000 years. We're talking way back in history for this new find.

The archaeologists found layer upon layer of bedding, suggesting that the people who once slept there did so repeatedly, either in sustained or in annual periods of time.

Now, we certainly don't have evidence of four-poster frames keeping that bedding off the ground. No, the bed-shaped collections of grass and leaves were certainly found lying on the ground. But the point is that the people who reclined on these "mats" were not lying on the ground. They were lying on something that made their sleep a bit more sound, thanks not only to the slight cushion and bit of warmth provided by the material but also the insect-free nature of the rest and recovery time.

The scientists discovered, in further evidence that this settlement wasn't a one-off, evidence of burned-off bedding. The wild quince kept certain pests away, to be sure, but the cave would have been home to a large number of species, any one of which would have found the bedding as appetizing as the people. When a mat had deteriorated enough to be unusable, the "residents" responded by crafting a new mat, not changing their address. 

German Experts Defuse WWII Bomb in Rhine

Allied bombers targeted Koblenz, Germany, in 1944 and 1945, as part of a total drop of nearly 2 million tons of bombs on the country in an effort to target the industries that were making the weapons and the machines and otherwise the armed forces and their war effort. The bombing efforts were so successful in and around Koblenz that not much of the city was left after the war &#151 except of 1.0-ton unexploded bomb, of course.

Like much of the country, Koblenz was site of a rebuilding effort after the end of the war. Now a pleasant city near the place where the Mosel River and the Rhine River meet up, Koblenz was nonetheless in the crosshairs of the bomb squad yet again recently, except this time it was to finish the job started by the British plane that dropped a bomb nearly 60 years ago.

Seems the bomb fell in the Rhine River, with nary an explosion to be had. The river being rather deep, it proved a good hiding place for this little ordnance number (undoubtedly not the first or last of its kind). In fact, the bomb, the largest aerial mine discovered so far, was found in 16 inches of water, surrounded by hundreds of sandbags, revealed by recent drops in water levels in the wake of a particularly dry German November.

The government wanted to get rid of it, of course, but on their own terms, so they ordered a mass evacuation of about 45,000 people in a 1.1-mile radius around the bomb's final resting place. The places targeted for evacuation included hospitals, shopping centers, and even a prison. (The government took special care with the inhabitants of that residence hall.)

The bomb squad had a particularly tough time because the explosives housed with the detonator were adept at reacting with water over time. Why the bomb hadn't yet gone off couldn't immediately be told, probably because the focus had been entirely on the defusal process.

In the end, the bomb didn't go off and everyone was able to go back to their normal lives — which is certainly something that didn't happen in the mid-1940s.

This Bites: Wisdom Teeth Leftovers from Evolution

Ages ago now, the people on this planet made quite a historic anthropological shift, deciding — en masse in some cases — to hunker down and grow crops and herd animals, rather than keep the ramblin' lifestyle to which they had been accustomed. All that running and chasing and rummaging through berry bushes must have been exhausting after awhile.

At any rate, this Agricultural Revolution made it a bit more easy and less life-threatening for humans to stick around the newly settled land, and so they did just that. Now, the one thing that they continued to do was eat, and so they continued to use their teeth to chew and so they, in turn, found slightly different uses for their teeth and jawbones, no longer needing the massive amounts of teeth and huge jaws to rip into the flesh of a freshly killed antelope, lion, or wildebeest. 

This according to a new study by a physical anthropologist out of the University of Kent. This person claims that as humans ate foods that were softer and more processed, their teeth needed to be less and less fierce and sharp and so, during the ages of evolution that followed, got less and less exercise and so, as a whole, became less and less necessary. And as the teeth got used less and less, the jawbones that surrounded those teeth got less and less use and so, over time, got smaller and smaller.

The problem was, though, that the teeth continued to grow, at a similar size, in a space that grew smaller and smaller — which explains why the people of today have wisdom teeth that have no use other than to cause pain until they are removed.

Now, this is certainly not the case with all modern humans. In fact, some people are born without wisdom teeth of any kind. (Whether this affects the amount of wisdom that they gather during their lifetimes is an entirely independent manner.) But many people are born with their wisdom teeth intact, and these teeth mature so much that they are impacted and don't serve any useful purpose anymore. Why? Because the jawbone that previously allowed the teeth access to food has become smaller over time, such that modern humans would be really hard-pressed to use those wisdom teeth for anything at all.

Modern dentists don't much care, though. They're quite happy to continue to extract these vestigial sources of pain, to the tune of several hundred dollars a pop. We don't have a whole lot of records about dentistry in the distant past. Wisdom teeth probably weren't much of an issue in the way we view them now because they were being used. But ancient peoples still would have had tooth pain, of course, because that is something that we have whether we use the teeth or not.

Anyway, the scientific study compared 11 human populations from across the world. Results are in the November 21 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Was Jane Austen Murdered? It's the Wrong Question

What's next — Lit CSI?

A British crime novelist has come out with a book in which she alleges that Jane Austen was murdered. Publicity stunt? Perhaps. It certainly can't hurt sales for the book, which is, after all, a novel.

And even though the book is written by a journalist/criminologist who was the first woman ever to graduate from Queens' College in Cambridge, I can't help wondering whether the sort of analysis that Lindsay Ashford is bringing to this kind of inquiry is a bridge too far.

After all, do we really need to know, after all this time, that Jane Austen died of arsenic poisoning? Would that increase sales of her books? (The answer to that question is probably "Briefly.") Austen is one of those timeless authors whose books continue to sell precisely for the right reasons: They are filled with endearing, enduring characters whose struggles resonate, at least in a few small yet recognizable ways, with the readers of yesterday and today and tomorrow. Do we need to add "murdered" to the description of this revered author?

If the book is that much of a hit and the drumbeat for exhumation is loud enough, we could be in for a repeat of the Zachary Taylor affair or the Tycho Brahe business. (The jury is still out on that second one, by the way.) Was it really necessary to dig these guys up and do more tests on them? Surely they're long dead and we can get on without having to know more and more about their lives (or bodies).

I suspect it is, after all, a publicity stunt. I, for one, don't want to know what really killed Jane Austen. I'm happy for her death to remain mysterious, for the simple reason that I care far more for the words that she wrote and published and that generations since have far and away appreciated. 

Cranial Shield Would Have Put This Ancient Croc A-head of the Game

In the annals of attack animals, this one would have been high on that list, as well as high on the list of animals having a ready defense against other predators.

This one is a 33-foot-long crocodile with a 6.5-foot-long head topped by a bony plate in the form of a shield. Now that's one tough lizard. Scientists have dubbed it "Shieldcroc."

This large-toothed animal dude lived from 93 million to 99 million years ago, in the Late Cretaceous period, when the planet was populated by other very large crocodiles. (Sounds like the plot for a horror movie.)

The fossil was discovered in what is now Morocco and is now in the Royal Ontario Museum of Canada. The scientists presented their findings at a recent meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, in Las Vegas.

We have just the skeleton at this point in time, of course, so any conclusions presented by paleontologists can be, at best, informed speculation. Still, the speculation is that Shieldcroc had small teeth and weak jaws, which would put it in the class of a fish-eater more than a fierce flesh-tearer.

Also, some scientists think that the shield-like protrusion on top of Shieldcroc's head was not always for battle with others over food or territory but, rather, for battle at times over living arrangements — namely, that the shield, which is thought to have been not so much through-and-through bone as a shell covering tissue packed with blood vessels, which not only helped to regulate body temperature but also served as a means of attracting a mate.

Now that's using your head.

Viking Chieftain’s Ship Found in Scotland

Sutton Who?

Archaeologists have unearthed another big ship virtually intact, this one also carrying the body of a chieftain. It's a Viking ship, and it was unearthed in a remote peninsula on the western coast of Scotland. It's the first Viking ship burial found on the mainland that is now the United Kingdom. Experts have dated it to the 10th Century. The site of discovery is on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula, the mainland's most westerly point.

The chieftain was certainly still ready for battle. His sword and spear were by his side, and his shield was on his chest. Nearby were a knife, an axe, and another object thought to be a drinking horn.

Other items in the boat show the metropolitan nature of the chieftain. The ringpin is from Ireland, and the whetstone is from Norway. Like other Viking burials, this one included a large number of rocks.

The boat is rather small, about six feet long and about four feet wide. Such a small craft would have been rather an inappropriate method of sending the chieftain to the afterlife because of the surrounding seas, which were and are usually quite stormy. Perhaps the purpose was a burial at sea.

Other items recovered by the boat and surrounding ground include a few teeth and a fragment of a bone from the chieftain's arm — virtually all that is left after so many hundreds of years underground.

Archaeologists will do more testing on the fragments of wood still attached to the rivets, in order to determine what kinds of trees made up the boat's carcass.

Comet Nearly Killed Us All One Hundred Years Ago

I suspect that this happens more often than many of us are comfortable with. Sometimes, too much information is entirely too much.

From someone who probably too much time comes the story of how we — meaning the entire planet — nearly escaped death as late as 1883.

The story of a comet wiping out the dinosaurs is far enough back in the dawn of time that we don't really think about it much anymore. Oh, it appears in books and magazines every now and again, but hey, that was tens of millions of years ago, so what's the big deal now?

Closer to our own time was the mystery-shrouded event in Siberia, called "the Tunguska event." Just little more than 100 years ago, in 1908, a huge extraterrestrial object, which most people think was a comet or an asteroid, went to ground in Tunguska, Siberia. Scientists have estimated that the result of the collision was about a thousand times more powerful than an atomic bomb. Of course, it was in Siberia, so not a whole lot of people were around at the time (and those who were … soon weren't.) And hey, this was Russia, so not a whole lot of news coverage made it out of the country anyway.

Now, however, comes word that a massive comet did a near-miss in August of 1883 and the only witness we know about was a Mexican astronomer who just happened to be in the right(?) place at the right time.

See, this guy named Jose Bonilla wrote about his observations of 450 huge things zooming across his view of the Sun. The French astronomy journal L'Astronomie published Bonilla's account, but it didn't gain much traction with the public at large.

A new study in Technology Review, however, has concluded, after further technological review, that Bonilla saw the huge bits and pieces of a comet that came very close to Earth, perhaps as 373 miles away.

The study quotes the size of the these observed fragments as anywhere from 164 feet across to 2.5 miles wide. Now that's a big range, and it all adds up to nearly an original weight of a billion tons — which is about what that dinosaur-killing comet weighed.

Of course, the comet didn't come close enough to make a whole lot of difference, and it certainly didn't strike the planet or wipe out any species. But it could have, and that's the point. 

Anyone know Bruce Willis's mobile number?

Run! Hide! T-rex Even Bigger Than Feared

Steven Spielberg was on to something. In the same vein as his friend George Lucas being prescient, Spielberg knew exactly what he was talking about when he showed us a rearview mirror in Jurassic Park that read "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." Such is the case with the mighty T-Rex, which just got more mighty.

A new study led by scientists in the U.K. and the U.S. has asserted that Tyrannosaurus rex, the feared carnivore that has been the nightmare of many a Triceratops and young boy, was bigger than we have thought.

It's not like we have these creatures around anymore to do some handy measuring, despite the kind of entertainment that Spielberg and others have given us on the Silver Screen. After all, T-rex and his Cretaceous cousins died out 65 million years ago. (And whether you believe that an asteroid or disease or aliens killed them, they're still long dead.) But we do have these fossils, see, and we do have computers now, see, and so the journal PLos One now reports, thanks to the diligence of these scientists and their computer models, that T-rex could grow nearly 4,000 pounds in a year. The paper asserts that the largest of the nightmarish razor-toothed carnivorous predator could have weighed in at more than 18,000 pounds of muscle — 4,000 pounds more than previously thought.

How have these men and women of science come to this conclusion? So back to the skeletons, and the computers. By taking 3-D laser scans of five mounted skeletons of the big lizards, the scientists had plenty of material for extrapolating — using strict scientific method, of course — and so they went to work, inch by inch, pound by pound, computer model by computer model, crunching the numbers and poring over the details, until they had come up with their conclusions, which are enough to upset the dreams of a whole new generation of young children.

If there's one bright side to these new conclusions, it's that the weight gain eventually caught up with the body type. In other words, the more the T-rex aged, the slower it moved. This is typical of nearly animals, and it must be comforting for us humans to know that T-rex slowed down eventually, although we would do well to remember that the giant beasts could still use their huge hips and tail to propel themselves at up to 25 mph. That's still fast enough to run down most kinds of prey, including those in dreams.

Michelangelo in the Eye of the Holder

Is that a Michelangelo you see before you? Could be.

News out of the Italian art history community this week is that a marble tondo depicting a bearded man is a portrait (possibly even a self-portrait) of Michelangelo. The tondo, or circle, is 14 inches in diameter and shows a man in three-quarter profile. It has been dated to about 1545.

The celebrated artist whose last name has come down to us as Buonarroti lived from 1475 to 1564, so he was definitely alive when this tondo was completed. That's the first clue.

Another fine clue is that the marble used to create the tondo in question came from the same place as that used to create the famed tomb of Pope Julius II — from the Polvaccio quarry in Carrara, in northwest Tuscany. Julius, of course, was the pope who commissioned Michelangelo to build a tomb for the emperor, then told him to put that on hold and get on with painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Julius wanted such a massive tomb and Michelangelo wanted such a massive building project that the tomb wasn't finished in the pope's lifetime. Indeed, Michelangelo continued work on it off and on for 40 years, so he must have had some marble left over with which to create the tondo in question. And the dating of the tondo to about 1545 is consistent with the cessation of work on Julius's tomb (1545).

The fresh news was from the director of the Museo Ideale, in Vinci, who corroborated an assertion made by a noted Michelangelo scholar back in 1999 and affirmed by another leading art historian not long ago. Some art historians even think that the artist intended the tondo to appear in the tomb, alongside other massive statuary, such as the celebrated Moses.

This is news because portraits (self- or otherwise) of Michelangelo are a bit on the rare side. If this is indeed one of those, it's a rather good one, capturing a moment in the existence of a man who was larger than life.

The Artists of 100,000 Years Ago

The artists of yesteryear had so much more time than today's artists — at least that's what today's artists would say.

Truth be told, artists in ancient times were more than likely scarce and scared, but that's perhaps another story.

Our story for today is that researchers have discovered in a South African cave the remains of what they think is an artist's studio. The evidence for this is rather rich — in ochre. In a pair of abalone shells was a bit of material rich in ochre. Alongside the shells were bones, charcoal, and such tools of the trade as grindstones and hammerstones. The working theory is that the ancient people (or at least those who were around 100,000 years ago) used bones to stir the ochre mixture and then use that ochre mixture for decoration. All of these things were buried underneath sand, as if (the researchers speculate) someone had intended to come back for them but never returned.

The researchers discovered the items in 2008 and subjected them to large volumes of luminescence dating and other analysis before announcing the findings, which also included a theory that the "painters" rubbed bits of ochre on quartzite slabs to make a red powder — perhaps evidence of an early form of chemistry.

It was not the first announcement from the cave: Eons ago — or at least back in 2002 — researchers found blocks of ochre containing engravings in the abstract, dating from 70,000 years ago. Other discoveries have come from the cave as well. Clearly, this was a group of people who had time on their hands.

The name of the cave needs a bit of work if it's to be accepted by the norms of society: Blombos Cave, on the southern Cape Coast, on points east of Cape Town.

We can't have everything.

Charting WWII oil spill potential

The common perception is that during World War II, Japanese forces came nowhere the American western coastline. To a large extent, that is true. However, it is not entirely true, as we are reminded by the launch this week of an oil recovery program for an oil tanker sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Cambria, Calif., in 1941.

The SS Montebello was the target of a Japanese torpedo, and the result was a ship 900 feet below the surface, with the oil intact. Seven decades later, the 440-foot ship — and its oil — are still there.

Divers accompanied by a remotely operated underwater vehicle are aiming to ascertain whether the oil is in danger of spilling out of the ship. Scientists think that the oil would be very thick after so long in the ship's hold, but they're not taking any chances. The divers will drill a 1-inch-diameter hold into a couple of the oil tanks and extract samples that scientists will analyze, before deciding on further action, which include a recovery operation.

The publicity is a far cry from what accompanied the sinking. The U.S. Military hushed up the incident. All 38 people onboard were rescued and (presumably) sworn to secrecy. The U.S. Government did not confirm knowledge of the incident until many years later.

Now, though, the priority is preventing a big oil spill.

Oldest Still-running Car Sells for $4.6 million

What's the price of propulsion? In this case, it's $4.6 million.

That's the price paid for the world's oldest still-running vehicle, a steam-powered car from france that sold at auction in the U.S. The car has a nickname of La Marquise, but has a much longer actual name of the De Dion-Bouton et Trepardoux Dos-a-Dos Steam Runabout. Built under the longer name, the car was put together in 1884 and was driven in the first automobile race three years later.

Only four men owned the car in its long life. The latest previous owner was John O'Quinn, a collector from Texas, who had bought it in 2007 for $3.5 million.

The longer name of the vehicle comes in part from the man for whom it was built, Count De Dion. His mother, of course, was La Marquise.

The car seats four people back-to-back, eliminating the presence of a back-seat driver because they can't see where they're going — only where they've been. And that's just as well because the driver doesn't have a steering wheel; rather, the driver is tasked with maneuvering a tiller that resembles nothing so much as a common garden implement.

The new owner won't be going very fast in this vehicle, or very far — the car gets only half a mile to the gallon. But the new owner probably didn't buy it to run it in any races. If he or she is in any way like one of the previous owners, it will be more than 80 years before the car changes hands again.

JFK Bomb Shelter Begging for Tourists

You'd be forgiven for at first thinking "Why bother?" But as a piece of historical trivia, this is a good one: Now open to the public is a bomb shelter built for President John F. Kennedy at the height of the Cold War.

It's a bit of a trip from Massachusetts or Washington, D.C., but it's worth the trip if you want to get away from it all. The shelter, referred to in documents at the time as the "Detachment Hotel," is on Peanut Island, off the coast of Palm Beach, Fla. Navy Seabees built the shelter in December 1961, and Kennedy did stay there, for brief periods of time, twice.

Trees camouflage the entrance, and passersby who happened to notice the shelter were told that it was a munitions dump. Incredibly, it was maintained for a few decades before falling into disrepair in the 1990s. (No doubt the funding ran out, just like for many other military installations.)

However, some new money was found and the bunker is now open to the public, in a promotion that organizers hope will put the tiny island on the map.

Visitors can take a step into the recent past, viewing the 15 metal bunk beds, ham radio, petroleum jelly, castor oil, and K-rations (not to mention the gas masks that would probably be the most sought-after item of supply if things really got rough). Fittingly, the shelter also contained a bona fide escape hatch, in case the cover was blown and a full-scale physical invasion was under way.

You can book your tour of the bunker, which is now a museum, at any time, really, since the organizers are quite happy to show anyone around. Crowds have become sparse, as has funding.

Pursuing the Wider Utility of the Straw Poll

So the presidential election season is in full swing already, with the allegedly big-time straw poll taking place in Davidson County, Iowa. The big winner this time, more than a full year before the 2012 presidential election, was Michele Bachmann, the darling of the very right part of the generally right-wing party of the Republican persuasion.

This is big news. See, the straw poll was the main event at the annual picnic of the Davidson County Republican Party. (Presumably, they don't have this sort of straw poll every year, even though the picnic is an annual one.) This year, however, most of the media in the known world would have been there, holding their breath until the tallies were released. And the big news that preceded the giant relief of those waiting to exhale was that Bachmann came out on top.

It was a rather crowded field, so she didn't exactly get a majority. In fact, her first-place finish was by way of a 20 percent preference. This was big news, of course, because she finished ahead of GOP mainstay Mitt Romney, who finished second in the polling, just ahead of Herman Cain, who used to run a pizza chain.

About 250 people attended this earth-shaking event; and if you do the math on that, you come up with about 50 people casting their straw for the congresswoman from Minnesota. Yep, Bachmann is a member of the House of Representatives. She's running for president, of course, and it brings to mind the chances of her taking the nomination and/or, conceivably, the presidency.

History is not a friend to her in this case, since the last person to go directly from the House to the White House was James A. Garfield, way back in 1880. Garfield was a Republican, so there is some precedent there. He won by a mere 10,000 popular votes, over the Democratic nominee, General Winfield Scott Hancock, who was as old as the hills 20 years before, during the Civil War. And Garfield, of course, was killed in his first year in office. But I digress.

Anyway, this straw poll business got me to thinking about whether we could use this method of solution-finding or decision-making for other important decisions. Imagine if the federal budget could be decided by a straw poll. We wouldn't need Reconciliation or Conference Committees or any other such pillars of modern democratic governing practice. As long as every voting member of both houses of Congress had a straw and submitted that straw for a final count, we could get on with the more important things in modern life, such as how many Twitter followers Lady Gaga is up to in the past week.

This straw poll idea might need some careful thinking when the Congressional bills got to the President for approval. Presumably, the President would have more than one straw, since he has Authorization or Veto power — although giving the President more than one straw sort of goes against the principle of one person, one vote. And you'd probably have to give the Supremes — sorry, the Justices of the Supreme Court — straws as well.

It could get kind of complicated, though. The key, I think, would be that each politically important person would get just one straw for each vote. So we might need to do some work around the idea of what Congress would do if the President cast the Veto straw at a Congressional bill. And conceivably, there's the Supreme Court's Unconstitutional straw to worry about as well. It's enough to make a Congressperson hold back on the straw-casting to see what everybody else is doing — or run for President.

British Library to pay millions for well-preserved Anglo-Saxon book

Religions still sells &151; big time.

The British Library is having to come up with 9 million pounds (that's $14.5 million) to buy the rights to display the St. Cuthbert Gospel, a 7th Century book revered by its contemporaries and their many descendants.

Cuthbert lived in the 7th Century, dying in 687. He was buried at Lindisfarne, the famed target of Viking raiders a few hundred years later. To protect the bones and other treasures left behind by Cuthbert, monks moved the coffin to Durham. When the coffin was opened in 1104, those responsible found the small book inside.

The book contains a complete Latin text of the Gospel of John. The book is remarkably well preserved, given its age. The cover is leather, and cover and contents are in such good shape that you have to wonder whether the airtight nature of the coffin helped in keeping the book from falling apart down through the centuries.

Lindisfarne, of course, was plundered and burned, but Cuthbert's remains were long gone by then, which is one reason that they have survived to the present day. Another reason, of course, is that the Church needs money.

The Church in this case is the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, and they will profit quite handsomely from merely hanging on to the book all these years. The British Library, meanwhile, will get to show off yet another artifact from the island's past. The library reports having raised more than half the money already. (That's half of 9 million pounds — not bad for a fundraising effort.)

Strength of Purpose: Filling in the Gaps in the Story of the Philistines

It's tough sometimes to shake preconceptions. Those of us brought up in the Christian tradition know well the story of the Philistines, for they were one of the chief antagonists to the rise of ancient Israel. In particular, they had a champion named Goliath who was bested by Israel's young David, in an encounter that still lends itself to comparisons today. Another story that survives to this day was of the Philistine champion Samson, whose legendary strength was undone by the fleecing of the hair off his head.

Goliath and Samson — two pillars of strength, as it were — and yet both were undone by guile — in Goliath's case by a well slung stone from tiny David and in Solomon's case a well thought out plan from the crafty Delilah.

But who were those ancient people? The Jewish and Christian traditions don't give much more detail than that on the Philistines, but they were certainly successful in surviving in the rough-and-tumble world of the ancient Mediterranean.

Gath, the city that archaeologists have unearthed recently, was one of several Philistine settlements that dotted the area after the people arrived from Greece about 1200 B.C. They built towns that turned into some major ports of the area, including one called Gaza.

Results of the dig include shards of jugs, ancient bones, and a large number of stones assembled as buildings and embankments — the latter a big clue that the city was fortified against an invading army. Indeed, the neighboring Arameans succeeded in razing the city in 830 B.C.

The Philistines lasted for a few centuries, until the Babylonian army under King Nebuchadnezzar wiped them off the map. However, as with the Babylonian Captivity, the famed king might have won a temporary victory, but today's diggers are unearthing evidence that paints an ever diverse picture of the Philistines, a picture that has much more than the one dimension mentioned in David's triumph and Samson's defeat.

Shuttle Is History; Exploration Should Not Be

The last of the space shuttle missions began today, and so an era ends.

The shuttle was a reusable space transport vehicle that captured the imagination of many, many people, chief among them proponents of space exploration and of scientific research.

Yes, the shuttle cost money — tons of it. Yes, people died, and that is always a tragedy. I can't imagine the terrible toll that has taken on the lives of the families left behind, especially when we appear to celebrate success but don't remember their sacrifices.

But also yes, shuttle astronauts ran thousands of experiments that gave us greater insight into how things work in our bodies, in our environment, in our atmosphere, and in our universe. And yes, shuttle astronauts launched (and, in one famous case, fixed) a parade of outer space exploration machines that are to this day rewriting our books of knowledge on what is in the sky we look at every night.

This kind of technology and discovery did not come cheap, but cost isn't always the most important factor. The more we seek to understand what is around us and in us, the more we will spend — be that time or money or both. Progress can be slow, and it can bound ahead in great leaps. Progress is always worth the time, effort, and money we spend.

The shuttle program has ended. The exploration of space should not.

Ring of Truth Reappears 40 Years Later

Oh, you have to appreciate this kind of happy ending.

More than 50 years later, a man will finally get his high school class ring back. Back in 1960, the man gave his Class of 1962 ring to his girlfriend as a token of affection. The two young people like each other — quite a lot, in fact — and so it was quite understandable that the young woman was mortified when, because of slippery fingers, she managed to drop the ring in the toilet mid-flush.

This unfortunate event occurred in Roanoke Rapids, N.C., where apparently the plumbing is quite good because the family's hastily called plumber spent a large amount of time ripping up the pipes without finding the ring. The woman apologized, the boyfriend accepted, and on they went, together. They eventually got married.

Fast forward to 2011 and a particularly bad storm in Roanoke Rapids, resulting in the collapse of a storm pipe. Wouldn't you know that the cleanup crew discovered the long-lost ring — intact if a bit dirty. The ring had become lodged in the sewer not far from where it entered the sewer system and had stayed there

The foreman of the crew that found the ring took it to a local jeweler, who returned the ring to its former shine and sheen. Then, it was on to finding the owner.

That proved to be the easy part because only 25 students graduated from the ring-owner's high school in 1962 and the school closed the very next year. A few phone calls later, the foreman was in touch with the ring's rightful owner, who is still married to the same woman.

No word from the couple on how they're going to look after the ring this time, but it's probably along the lines of a bookcase or trophy case or at least a drawer in a dresser far from the bathroom.

Fossil Hunter Sniffs Out an Archaeological First

The nose knows. Or someone knows about noses. Or something like that.

Anyway, scientists have announced that they have discovered a bone fragment that is about 13,000 years old in Florida, of all places. It's "of all places" because the bone fragment has etched on it an engraving of a trunked animal. That, together with the dating of the fragment, make this find the only known example of art that a proboscidean (the aforementioned trunked animal) found in North or South America. Europe, of course, has several examples of such nose-heavy art, but the Americas haven't been able to join the nose-knows club, until now.

A fossil hunter found the bone fragment in Vero Beach, Fla., and found the artwork only while doing the cleaning. The fragment is just 3 inches long and 1.75 inches tall and is part of a bone of a large mammal — scientists think it was a mammoth or maybe a mastodon. (The longshot speculation would be on giant sloth, but none of the scientists were willing to enhance that speculation with enthusiastic support.)

You can read all about it in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Also involved in the preservation of this terribly important fragment will be the Museum Conservation Institute and the National Museum of Natural History. Oh, and the Smithsonian Institution.

With such historical heavyweights involved, you'd have to ask what it all means in the grander scheme of things. Is it a watershed moment? Probably not. Is it something that hasn't been before? Well, yes and no — yes in various caves in Europe but no in parts Western. So from that perspective, it is significant. It's all part of a greater picture of anthropology that continues to emerge, from likely and unlikely sources.

The Official Was the Cause of Gladiator's Death, Professor Claims

Blame the referee.

That's one academic's theory about an enigmatic epitaph that has stumped historians for nearly 100 years. The epitaph is on the tombstone of a Roman gladiator who died about 1.800 years ago in what is now Turkey.

The tombstone depicts what could be the final scene in the life of a Roman gladiator, Diodorus, who died after a fight with Demetrius, another gladiator. The tombstone shows one gladiator holding two swords while the other gladiator is on the ground, holding up one hand as if in submission.

It is that last word that is the key, according to a Canadian professor, who believes that he has solved the mystery. The inscription on the tombstone reads ""After breaking my opponent Demetrius I did not kill him immediately. Fate and the cunning treachery of the summa rudis killed me."

The summa rudis was the referee. The professor believes that the reference to the referee is a a suggestion that certain rules were not followed. In detail, a gladiator who has lost his sword can request submission; also, a gladiator who has fallen by accident can get up, pickup his sword, and keep on fighting.

The professor's theory is that the tombstone, which has been in the Brussels Musee du Cinquanternaire since the early 20th Century, depicts Diodorus holding two swords and Demetrius on the ground and that the referee allowed Demetrius to get back up, after he had fallen and Diodorus had grabbed his sword. The result was a reversal of fortune, as Demetrius then gained the upper hand and Diodorus paid with his life, either right then or later, as a result of the renewed struggle.

Even though the tombstone shows Diodorus in a strong position, holding both swords, the tombstone doesn't show the final part of the story, which would be quite the opposite of what is being depicted.

It's one man's theory, perhaps, and it's a bit convoluted. But if it can be corroborated, we can all rest easier, at least in gladiatorial terms, which is more than can be said for Diodorus.

Blackbeard Exhibit Now on Display

Leave it to Blackbeard to make off with his own treasure even as his flagship was no longer of any use.

The revered pirate, whom many people believe was a man named Edward Teach, lost his favorite ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, when it ran aground off the coast of North Carolina in the early 18th Century. But because the ship merely hit rocks, instead of sinking, the pirate captain and his crew had ample time to get away with whatever they could carry, which was probably jewels, gold, and other lightweight items — including the legendary guns, cutlass, and matches to light his hair on slow-burn fire.

The rest of it is now on display at the North Carolina Maritime Museum. Among the items to be shown are cannons, lead shots, bells, anchors, and much more, about 300 items in all. The curiosity factor alone will be enough to get many people in the doors of the museum, which plans to leave the items on permanent display.

One of the more prominent items on display will be the large anchor just plucked from the depths. Weighing 3,000 pounds and measuring 13 feet long and 16 feet wide, the anchor was a particular target of the salvage crew.

The display will no doubt benefit as well from the popularity of the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, in which both Blackbeard and the Queen Anne's Revenge feature prominently.

'Modern' Disease Found in Ancient People

Something new is old again. Or something old is new again. It's the same story here, with here being a study out of Emory University reporting that some of the peoples of the ancient Nubian lands died of a disease still around today.

That disease is schistosomiasis, which travels through the skin after contact with worm-infested waters. In the 21st Century, more than 200 million people contract this dread disease, which results in a rash, fever and chills, coughs and achy muscles. And that's when it's treated. If you don't do a thing about it other than hope it goes away, you could suffer damage to your internal organs, specifically the bladder, intestines, liver, and lungs. Nasty stuff, that schistosomiasis.

The thing is, scientists have thought that it's mainly a "modern" disease, meaning that the ancient folks, who suffered from many other diseases that aren't around today because we've managed to make drugs that help prevent or eradicate them, had this kind of sickness bullet to dodge as well.

How do we know this? Well, the good scientists who contributed to that Emory University study did some well-informed tests on 200 mummies found in two populations in what is now Sudan, at two different time periods: 1,200 years ago and 1,500 years ago. The earlier population was settled along a river but depended on canal irrigation to help their food crops flourish. The later population was different again, depending on only the oft-flooding Nile for their waterborne crop nourishment. Turns out that in both cases, that water was also bearing along the pathogen that likely made their lives very unpleasant, if not shortened.

You can read the full study here.

Climate Change Caused Viking Exit from Greenland: Study

So they got cold, did they? Surely they were made of sterner stuff, or so the histories would have us believe.

Seems the Vikings high-tailed it out of Greenland after the temperature dropped 7 degrees in a handful of generations way back in the 12th Century.

They were living there, and then they weren't. Similar patterns can be found in the 1300s and 1400s as well.

The Vikings arrived in 980, when things were hot all the way round, including on Greenland. The winters were harsh, of course, but the Vikings would have been used to that. Apparently, though, the winters (and the summers) got harsher still, and the result was a mass migration.

Now, the number of Vikings living on Greenland in the 12th Century was nowhere near the current population of New York or Paris, but the settlements were widespread enough to suggest more than a few people sprinkled here and there up and down the coast. So it seems strange that a little bit of cold would convince them to find greener pastures elsewhere.

We just don't know a whole lot about this time in history, mainly because the protagonists in our Little Ice Age story weren't all that good at writing things down and leaving them behind for future generations to find an decipher. We can guess, surely, but where does that get us?

The people doing the guessing — sorry, the educated speculating are from Brown University and have published a study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study's findings will no doubt be discussed and dissected for years to come.

The study suggests, actually, that the shift in temperatures downward affected the land and its ability to grow crops and support livestock. Not having enough food is certainly more of a reason that Vikings would abandon their Greenland outposts. It also lets the Norsemen off the hook in terms of having to answer an uncomfortable question.

Great Pyramid Robot Finds Hieroglyphs in Tiny Secret Chamber

Where have we heard this before? Yet, it could be something significant. Anything about the Great Pyramid could be significant, actually.

So this robot explorer, named Djedi after a famous historical figure has discovered ancient markings inside a secret chamber. The markings are hieroglyphs done in red paint and lines carved in the stone. The significance is that the pictures are the first taken by the robot as it sidled its way into a chamber too small for a human form — which raises the question of how were the figures and lines created in the first place.

The answer could be that the far wall of the chamber is a door. That's probably the most likely explanation. But the robot and its fabulous "micro-snake" camera haven't shown us the far wall yet and so we wait.

Also on the exploration list were a pair of copper pins set in a door at the end of the tunnel. Were they handles, key rings, part of some higher purpose? Archaeologists have puzzled over the purpose of the pins since they were discovered a couple decades ago.

Scientists are also intrigued by the purpose of the tunnels, which lead away from the King's and Queen's chambers: Did they help with the foundation or mean something to certain people or reflect the Egyptians' religious beliefs in some way? More information is needed.

Eye-in-the-Sky Infrared Reveals Buried Pyramids, City

Well, here's something that the Egyptian caretaker government will definitely cheer right along with the Egyptian people: Tourism income is likely to go up after the announcement of the discovery of 17 "lost" pyramids. Yes, those pyramids were lost to the sands of time, revealed only by infrared scanning from on high.

A group of archaeologists made the announcement after satellite imaging revealed the buried treasure, and then the archaeologists confirmed the findings with evidence at digs on the ground.

The buried pyramids are near Saqqara, site of the famous Step Pyramids, the antecedents of the more traditionally shaped pyramids, like those at Giza.

More exciting for many archaeologists, however, was probably the revelation of images of a street plan for Tanis, the ancient capital. (Indiana Jones fans will remember this city from the first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark.) Tombs and other structural ruins of Tunis have been found, but this find would greatly expand the modern understanding of the city's ancient reach.

The images showed thousands of tombs and buildings, which will take the government perhaps years to dig up, providing lots of media releases detailing whose burial site has revealed what hidden treasures.

The scanning searched for mud bricks, which were used to build homes and temples.

George Washington Artifacts Sell Well at Auction

George Washington can still sell.

The nation's first president left behind all manner of items that have become artifacts, mementoes, and treasured possessions over the years since his death. A set of his personal items recently sold at auction for a sum topping $167,000. Not bad for a guy long dead, even if he did confess to chopping down a cherry tree once upon a time.

Among the items were a compass, which would be a hot item because he was a noted surveyor before he ever joined the British Army or rebelled against it. The compass alone accounted for $59,750, more than experts expected. Also selling for big bucks was a collection of hundreds of Washington family papers, which together brought in $50,788.

A group of bits of his silver coffin also sold, for more than $12,000. That would be pieces of his original coffin. His body was moved to a marble sarcophagus in 1837.

The items were sold after the death of Nat Washington, a descendant of George Washington's brother Bushrod, who was named custodian of Mount Vernon after his famous brother's death. The "Father of Our Country," remember, left no direct descendants.

The auction took place in Dallas and was run by Heritage.

Queen Closing in on Top Spot

Well, this could well be one of the reasons that the Queen is still on the throne, relegating Charles to the longest-heir-in-waiting status to which he just ascended (and the only thing to which he is likely to ascend for some time yet): Elizabeth II has now become the second-longest reigning British monarch ever. First, of course, is Victoria (no need to put a number after her name because everybody knows there was only one). Queen Victoria was on the throne for 63 years and seven months. Elizabeth II has now been queen for a mere 59 years. Obviously, she has some catching up to do. But really, she has only to hang on until September 2015, when becomes Number 1. She's only 85 now, so she doesn't even have to make it to 90 before ascending to the top of the pantheon.

She's just past "Mad" King George III, who might or might not have been a bit looney in his later years. He ruled long after the American colonies convinced him to give them up. In fact, those top three (Victoria, Elizabeth II, and George III) are far and away the longest-serving monarchs in Britain/the UK. George V, is a distant fourth with 25 years logged in as head of state.

Of course, we're talking rulers of the United KIngdom here. The Acts of Union, passed in 1800, gave the framework for the U.K. Other rulers, such as the first Elizabeth, certainly served longer than did George V.

Only Thailand's king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, has served a longer term among current rulers. He became king in 1946, six years before Elizabeth became queen.

Royal sources estimate some astounding numbers for the current queen:

• more than 25,000 official engagements
• 400,000 honors and awards bestowed on the rich and famous and the not-so-rich and/or not-so-famous
• a full 1 million garden parties as hostesss
• an estimated 430 engagements a year (remembering that a year has 365 days).

Charles has no chance of succeeding her in anything but hereditary lineage.

Gouge in Fossil Jawbone Suggests War Wound: Scientists

So I wonder whether the midden-searchers of a thousand years from now will encounter this sort of thing with boxers and think, "Hmmm … wonder if they were involved in a knock-down, drag-out?"

Archaeologists have reported finding the remains of an ichthyosaur in Australia. No big deal, right? They find things like this all the time. Well, here's the kicker: This big beastie had a big gouge in its jaw, leading the archaeologists to speculate that the creature had been in a fight during which the creature had sustained a reptilian roundhouse to the mouth, specifically the lower jaw.

The remains were in good enough condition that the researchers were able to determine that the reptile did not die from the wound; rather, the not-so-wee beastie survived and even thrived, with a callus growing over the wound, its body's way of protecting against a repeat performance.

Now, this is fossils we're talking bout this point, since the ichthyosaur was swimming and running around about 120 million years ago, so the wound is definitely on the jawbone. The wound is not of the puncture variety, so the researchers don't think that a predator was behind the gouge. Given that, the researchers' current speculation is that the wound came from a reptile much similar to the one for which they have the remains — and that the fight was over the usual thing(s) — food, land, family.

Double Honors for Astronaut Alan Shepard

Alan Shepard, the first American in space, is getting twin honors posthumously.

Shepard, who rocketed to fame on May 5, 1961, aboard Freedom 7, will be on the face of a Forever stamp issued on May 5, 2011, to mark the 50th anniversary of his momentous spaceflight. Forever stamps do not show an amount, so they are good for first-class mail in perpetuity.

Some family members of Shepard have already accepted another award on his behalf. On April 28, NASA named Shepard the winner of an Ambassador of Exploration Award for his Freedom 7 flight and for his role in the Apollo missions that landed on the Moon. Shepard and Edgar Mitchell walked on the Moon as part of Apollo 14, of which Shepard was the commander and which lasted form January 31 to February 9 in 1971. The award is a particularly striking piece of crystal that surrounds a lunar fragment, a piece of rock brought by the crew of Apollo 16. NASA has earmarked Apollo, Gemini, and Mercury astronauts as recipients of this award. (The fragments are small enough that they won't cut significantly into the 842-pound stash of Moon rocks that the Apollo astronauts brought back.)

The U.S. stamp featuring Shepard is part of a two-stamp set. The other one celebrates the Messenger mission, which was the first to orbit Mercury.

Television networks carried Shepard's Freedom 7 flight live, and he was feted as a hero when he returned, with parades in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C. He was soon named the first commander of a new manned space program, Gemini.

His in-space career was put on hold, however, when doctors diagnosed him with Meniere's disease, a condition that causes fluid buildup in the inner ear, which can be cause extreme symptoms in astronauts in space, who routinely suffer from dizziness and disorientation because of the intense stresses put on them. Shepard accepted the post of Chief of the Astronaut Office and watched as other men walked on the Moon.

After a few years, he was cleared for a slot on an Apollo mission, and he was, at age 47, named the commander of Apollo 14. Among his more famous lunar exploits was an "experiment" in which he struck a golf ball and attempted to track its distance (using only one hand, because of the stiffness of his spacesuit and the thickness of his gloves). He was a skilled pilot, however, and his landing on the Moon was the most accurate of the entire Apollo program. This was also the first mission to send live color TV pictures back to Earth.

Once he was back on Earth, Shepard returned to being Chief of the Astronaut Office, serving for another three years before retiring, in 1974. Among his retirement activities were a stint as a delegate to the U.N. General Assembly and roles on the boards of several corporations. Among his numerous honors were a Congressional Space Medal of Honor, the Langley Award (the Smithsonian Institution's highest honor), and induction into the U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame.

Alan Shepard died in 1998, of leukemia. He left behind a large family, a bestselling book (Moon Shot: The Inside Story of America's Race to the Moon), and a legacy that included all manner of things named after him, among them:

• the post office in Derry, N.H., the town of his birth
• a Navy supply ship
• a geodesic dome
• countless streets and parts of several interstate highways
• schools and school buildings in several states
• a Technology in Education award
• and a Discovery Center in Concord, N.H., also named after Challenger astronaut Christa McAuliffe.