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: NYT
May 11, 2010
It was an all-American moment at Christie’s on Tuesday night. One of Jasper Johns’s seminal “Flag” paintings, from 1960-66, which had belonged to the writer Michael Crichton, became the star in the auction house’s postwar and contemporary art auction, selling for $28.6 million.
That figure was a record for the artist at auction, and well above the painting’s high $15 million estimate. Before the sale, many had speculated that it would set a record for a work by a living artist. (Th
Source: BBC News
May 12, 2010
A recording of a 1966 Beatles press conference at which John Lennon was quizzed over his controversial comments about Jesus is to be auctioned.
The reel-to-reel recording is estimated to fetch up to $25,000 (£16,800) at a Los Angeles sale on 13 June.
The tapes of the 17 August press conference in Toronto were stored in a drawer for more than 40 years, Bonhams and Butterfields said.
Lennon sparked outrage when he said the band were "more popular" t
Source: NYT
May 12, 2010
The Supreme Court has some justices who are liberals and some who are conservatives. It has some who see themselves as strict constructionists and some who probably do not.
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Times Topics: Elena Kagan | U.S. Supreme Court
And then it has the justices who grew up riding the subway and the ones who grew up turning right on red.
It has the justice who was the
Source: The Australian
May 12, 2010
LAST year, archeologist Mike Morwood and rock art specialist June Ross took the ride of their lifetime across the northwest Kimberley. They hired a helicopter and flew across largely trackless territory, their pilot landing periodically in spots where he felt he could get his helicopter down safely and where they believed a good rock art site might lie.
Their journey took them from Bigge Island, one of the Kimberley's largest offshore landmasses, east to inland pastoral stations, a
Source: New York Times
May 10, 2010
For a quarter of a century, two archaeologists and their team slogged through wild tropical vegetation to investigate and map the remains of one of the largest Maya cities, in Central America. Slow, sweaty hacking with machetes seemed to be the only way to discover the breadth of an ancient urban landscape now hidden beneath a dense forest canopy.
Even the new remote-sensing technologies, so effective in recent decades at surveying other archaeological sites, were no help. Imaging
Source: Discovery News
May 11, 2010
A few months ago we told you about a toothy new dinosaur that gulped down its food whole without chewing. Now new details about this ultimate dinosaur fast food lifestyle are coming in. They help to explain why some dinosaurs grew to become so tall, long and fat.
Research in the journal Biological Reviews presents a common sense bit of truth: The larger an animal is, the more time it spends eating. Elephants, for example, spend 18 hours per day satisfying their voracious appetites.
Source: Discovery News
May 10, 2010
"Dinobird," a 150-million-year-old fossil for an animal that looked half dinosaur and half bird, has just yielded some important chemical clues, according to a study published today in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences.
Extremely strong x-ray beams and other high tech equipment reveal that dinobird—Archaeopteryx—had dinosaur-like teeth but also features common to birds, such as feathers. What's more, the fossil retains the chemical components of those
Source: Discovery News
May 11, 2010
Egyptian archaeologists carrying routine excavations at the so-called “Avenue of Sphinxes,” have unearthed the remains of a 5th century Egyptian Christian church and a "nilometer," a structure used to measure the level of the Nile during floods.
Already announced by Dr. Sabry Abd El Aziz, head of the SCA's Egyptology sector, in a 2008 Discovery News exclusive interview, the Avenue of Sphinx project involves the restoration of a 2.7-km (1.7-mile) ancient processional avenu
Source: Discovery News
May 11, 2010
Nearly two years have past, and families throughout China still don't know what happened to their loved ones.
Wednesday marks the second anniversary of China's worst disaster in a generation, the Sichuan earthquake -- and a painful milestone for the families of the 17,921 people still recorded as missing.
Chinese law says relatives can apply two years after a disaster to have their loved ones registered among the dead. Not many are expected to do so. It's a choice that
Source: Discovery News
May 11, 2010
The 14th-century aqueduct runs along a route that dates back to the time of Jesus.
Archeologists said Tuesday they have uncovered a 14th-century aqueduct that supplied water to Jerusalem for almost 600 years along a route dating back to the time of Jesus -- but unlike most such finds, this time the experts knew exactly where to look.
Photographs from the late 19th century showed the aqueduct in use by the city's Ottoman rulers, nearly 600 years after its construction in
Source: The Kansas City Star
May 11, 2010
A foot below the grasses of rural Bates County, Ann Raab’s trowel has uncovered scars of a countryside torched by the Union Army.
Burnt wood embedded in rock. Melted glass, scorched ceramics and discolored soil where a flaming wall fell.
As a Ph.D. candidate in archaeology at the University of Kansas, Raab is less interested in the signs of destruction than in the ordinary remnants of lives ravaged. Buttons, for example, offer clues to the kinds of coveralls western Mis
Source: BBC
May 11, 2010
A Swedish artist who created an international furore by depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a dog was assaulted as he delivered a university lecture.
Lars Vilks says he was head-butted by an audience member as he spoke about the limits of artistic freedom.
The cartoonist's glasses were broken, but he was not injured.
Mr Vilks has been threatened on numerous occasions, but the assault at Uppsala University was the first time he has been physically attacked.
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 11, 2010
Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, has accused Pakistani government officials of knowing where Osama bin Laden and leaders of the Afghan Taliban are hiding.
Western officials have repeatedly questioned the determination of Pakistan to tackle militants, a problem which has taken on added significance following the arrest of Faisal Shahzad, accused of trying to detonate a bomb in Times Square.
American officials believe his plot was backed by the Pakistan Talib
Source: CNN
May 11, 2010
Investigators are preparing to exhume a possible mass grave site in Serbia where witnesses say the bodies of 250 ethnic Albanians are buried, prosecutors said.
The potential graves are beneath a company building and a parking lot in the town of Rudnica, a few miles north of Kosovo's border, the Office of the Serbian War Crimes Prosecutor said Monday.
Prosecutors said bodies may have been originally buried in Kosovo and later exhumed and transferred to Serbia.
Source: AP
May 11, 2010
A cross erected on a remote Mojave Desert outcropping to honor American war dead has been stolen less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to remain standing while a legal battle continued over its presence on federal land.
Versions of the memorial have been vandalized repeatedly in the last 75 years and the motive this time was not immediately known, but the theft was condemned Tuesday by veterans groups that support the cross and by civil libertarians that saw i
Source: AP
May 11, 2010
A labor union is pledging $50,000 for upkeep of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial grounds on the National Mall.
The Maryland-based International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced the gift Tuesday to help care for about 13 acres for the rest of the year....
Source: Guardian (UK)
May 11, 2010
David Cameron has entered 10 Downing Street as prime minister, returning the Conservative party to power after 13 years.
Cameron accepted the Queen's invitation to form a new government shortly before 8.30pm and minutes later spoke to the country outside Downing Street alongside his wife, Samantha, and announced he will establish a "proper and full" coalition with the Liberal Democrats - the first in British politics since 1945.
It follows four days of intense
Source: Independent (UK)
May 9, 2010
One of the paradoxes of Thursday's election is that despite the Liberal Democrats doing less well than many expected, their influence on the politics of the ensuing few years seems likely to be greater than it has been for decades. Does this mean that we may be on the verge of altering our electoral arrangements just when the Lib Dems are licking their wounds in disappointment at their poor poll showing?
Disappointment or not, the system still needs changing. Many of the untenable p
Source: Telegraph (UK)
May 11, 2010
An Australian physics lecturer has spotted a 99-year-old mistake in the definition of the word "siphon" in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).
Dr Stephen Hughes, from the University of Technology in Brisbane, noticed that the error in the dictionary during research for an article for science teachers.
The OED definition of the word erroneously states that atmospheric pressure makes siphons work, when in fact it is the force of gravity.
Siphons d
Source: Spiegel Online
May 7, 2010
Forgotten for decades, a trove of post-war photographs from 1945 has recently been unearthed. The snapshots illustrate the devastation of the German capital and capture the desperation of the city in the weeks after the end of World War II. They also show glimpses of Berlin's resilience.
The soldier with the Iron Cross on his chest lies in the middle of the street. His steel helmet has rolled away. The Red Army soldiers are turning him onto his back and cleaning their weapons. They
