This page features brief excerpts of stories published by the mainstream
media and, less frequently, blogs, alternative media, and even obviously
biased sources. The excerpts are taken directly from the websites cited in
each source note. Quotation marks are not used.
Source: LiveScience
August 22, 2008
Medieval stained-glass windows colored in gold nanoparticles help purify air when lit by the sun, a new study finds.
"For centuries people appreciated only the beautiful works of art, and long life of the colors, but little did they realize that these works of art are also, in modern language, photocatalytic air purifier with nanostructured gold catalyst," said Zhu Huai Yong, a material scientist at the Queensland University of Technology.
When energized by th
Source: BBC
August 22, 2008
Bronze Age structure thought to have been used as a sauna has been
saved from destruction by the sea after a team of archaeologists moved
the entire find to a safer location. The building, which dates from
between 1500 BCE and 1200 BCE, was unearthed on the Shetland island of
Bressay (Scotland) eight years ago. It was found in the heart of the
Burnt Mound at Cruester, a Bronze Age site on the coast of Bressay
facing Lerwick. But earlier this summer, because of the increased threat
of coa
Source: Reuters
August 25, 2008
Three vast tunnels were opened under central Berlin this month, giving a glimpse of Adolf Hitler's megalomaniac vision of a new architectural centre for the capital of Nazi Germany.
The 16-metre (50-foot) deep tunnels were constructed in 1938 as part of an underground transport network beneath a series of bombastic buildings designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer, including the biggest domed hall the world had ever seen.
The overground plans, never completed because of
Source: NYT
August 24, 2008
That an air of the enigmatic attends Barack Obama is a commonplace; he is a man of fractured geography and family and wanderings.
He came of age in far corners, Indonesia and Hawaii, went to schools on both coasts and landed in Chicago, where he had no blood tie. With talent and ambition, he has leapt for the presidency at a tender age and will go to Denver to claim his Democratic nomination for the office.
There is to Mr. Obama’s story a Steinbeck quality, like so many
Source: Independent
August 26, 2008
Radical changes to the secondary school timetable will be introduced next week when England's three million secondary school pupils return to the classroom.
Key alterations include more emphasis on the study of black Britons and other ethnic minority groups in the history curriculum.
Youngsters will be told they should study topics such as the abolition of slavery in the British Empire and the work of reformers such as William Wilberforce, the MP who campaigned for its
Source: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com
August 25, 2008
Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated. Urban rioters had burned neighborhoods in cities across America. Many young people, angry and disillusioned about the Vietnam War, were in rebellion.
When U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye took the stage to give the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, he was speaking to a nation in turmoil. The Hawai'i Democrat was the choice of the establishment, of President Lyndon B. Johnson and the
Source: Canwest News Service
August 22, 2008
It's the oldest whodunit in Canadian history, and new research has
conclusively ruled out one of the suspect aboriginal groups behind the
retreat of Viking would-be colonists from the New World.
A scientific redating of the eastward migration of the Thule -- ancestors
of modern-day Inuit -- has pegged their push across Canada's polar
frontier to no earlier than AD 1200. That's at least 150 years after Norse
voyagers from Greenland are believed to have abandoned their short-lived,
11
Source: AFP
August 22, 2008
Japanese scientists will next month look into seismic
resistance secrets in the design of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon which has
withstood scores of quakes, a senior Greek archaeologist said on Friday."The Parthenon had great resilience to earthquakes, as did most classical
Greek temples," Maria Ioannidou, the archeologist in charge of
conservation on the ancient Acropolis citadel where the Parthenon stands,
told AFP."The ancient Greeks apparently had very good knowledge of quake beha
Source: The Age (Australia)
August 24, 2008
LANCEY who? The name of Melbourne's founding father doesn't exactly skip to the lips of most Victorians. A survey to mark the capital's 173rd birthday this Saturday found that not one of 300 Melburnians aged 16 and over knew that master mariner Captain John Lancey first moored the Enterprize on the north bank of the Yarra River on August 30, 1835. It's a contentious debate, as shown by the numbers who suggested two other likely suspects — John Batman and publican John Pascoe Fawkner. Others veer
Source: Fox News
August 25, 2008
A black Hillary Clinton delegate on Sunday accused state Senate President Emil Jones of calling her an "Uncle Tom."
Jones -- Barack Obama's political mentor -- denied using the racially loaded slur against Chicago political consultant Delmarie Cobb, but two aldermen who said they witnessed the Saturday night exchange back up Cobb's account.
"Last night, I was called an 'Uncle Tom' by Emil Jones in the lobby of the hotel, right in front of [Ald.] Freddren
Source: International Herald Tribune
August 25, 2008
MOSCOW: Seven human rights activists kneeled on Red Square on Sunday and unfurled a banner reading "For Your Freedom and Ours" and three were briefly detained by the police in a demonstration commemorating a similar action by Soviet dissidents 40 years ago who were protesting the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.
Four journalists were also detained, according to news reports and information posted on a blog, moscow-river- 25.livejournal.com, that appears to be connected t
Source: BBC
August 23, 2008
For the people of Georgia, any optimism about the future has been suddenly displaced by uncertainty and worries from the past, as its conflict with Russia ends in swift defeat and humiliation.
Grand buildings of the Soviet era do not decay with dignity; the cheap materials mean they just moulder.
The concrete walls of the former presidential palace which is Eduard Shevardnadze's Tbilisi home are streaked with water stains, the formal gardens as scruffy as the gaggle of
Source: WaPo
August 25, 2008
The daughter of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher said Britain's "Iron Lady" is suffering from dementia, the family's first public confirmation of what has been widely rumored in Britain for several years.
Thatcher's condition has deteriorated so much that she forgets that her husband, Denis Thatcher, died in 2003, her daughter said in a memoir that is to be published next month and was serialized over the weekend in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
"I
Source: Independent
August 25, 2008
The Catholic Church is under growing pressure to abandon the "homophobic" exhumation and reburial of the body of one its most famous cardinals, in defiance of his wish to lie for eternity next to the man he loved.
Gay rights campaigners have accused the Vatican – which has ordered the disinterment in the first step towards beatification – of attempting to cover up the sexuality of Cardinal John Henry Newman, who died in 1890.
Opposition to the reburial among s
Source: http://www.tennessean.com
August 21, 2008
A federal appeals court panel ruled Wednesday in favor of a Tennessee school system that banned the clothing that displayed the Confederate battle flag because of concerns the symbol could inflame racial tensions at a high school.
Students Derek Barr, Chris White, Roger Craig White and their parents said in a lawsuit their free speech rights were violated by the 2005 flag ban at William Blount High School in Maryville, about 15 miles south of Knoxville.
Source: BBC
August 24, 2008
Melting alpine glaciers are revealing fascinating clues to Neolithic life in the high mountains.
And, as a conference of archaeologists and climatologists meeting in the Swiss capital Berne has been discussing, the finds are also providing key indicators to climate change.
Everyone knows the story of Oetzi the Ice Man, found in an Austrian glacier in 1991. Oetzi was discovered at an altitude of over 3,000m.
He lived in about 3,300 BC, leading to speculation
Source: NPR
August 22, 2008
Forty years ago, Warsaw Pact countries invaded Czechoslovakia and crushed the democratization process known as the Prague Spring.
Today, Prague is a primary stop on the grand European tour. Throughout the year, millions of visitors wander through this jewel of medieval, baroque and art-deco architecture. The central Wenceslas Square — where Soviet troops clashed with citizens in August 1968 — is now lined with elegant shops and pricy restaurants.
But tourists are not l
Source: Yahoo
August 22, 2008
Descendants of refugees who fled Spain during the 1936-39 civil war or the ensuing dictatorship are contributing to a DNA bank to help identify bodies in mass graves believed to be victims of General Franco's forces.
Spaniards from France, Switzerland, Italy and Brazil, where many had emigrated during the war, gathered this past week in the cultural centre in the town of Aranda de Duero, in Burgos province north of Madrid.
All believe that relatives who disappeared duri
Source: BBC
May 23, 2008
East German lawyer Wolfgang Vogel, who oversaw some of the Cold War's biggest swaps of captured spies in Berlin, has died at 82, his family says.
Vogel died on Thursday at his home in Schliersee, Bavaria, after recently suffering a heart attack.
His swaps included KGB agent Rudolf Abel for US pilot Gary Powers, shot down over the USSR, in 1962.
He also oversaw the transfer of nearly a quarter of a million people from East to West Germany for billions of mar
Source: Times
August 25, 2008
The campaign of John McCain went head-to-head with Madonna today after the 50-year-old pop diva appeared to compare the Republican candidate to Hitler and Robert Mugabe.
Madonna, who kicked off her “Sticky and Sweet” world tour at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff yesterday, made the swipe during a performance of Get Stupid, when Mr McCain’s image was flashed up alongside images of the Führer and Zimbabwean dictator, as well as destruction and global warming.
In a non
