Ancient Mayan 'night sun' temple found in Guatemala

[AFP]  Archeologists have uncovered a 1,600-year-old Mayan temple dedicated to the "night sun" atop a pyramid tomb in the northern Guatemalan forest near the border with Mexico. "The sun was a key element of Maya rulership," lead archeologist Stephen Houston explained in announcing the discovery by the joint Guatemalan and American team that has been excavating the El Zotz site since 2006.

Weird Ancient Spiral Galaxy Discovered

[Discovery]  Astronomers have discovered a three-armed spiral galaxy dating back nearly 11 billion years -- much older than similarly structured objects that are common in the modern universe. The discovery was so jarring, scientists at first didn't believe their data.

Evidence of Nazi plot to kill Churchill through explosive chocolate unearthed

[Pakistan Today]  A1943 scheme by Nazi Germany to assassinate Winston Churchill through an explosive bar of chocolate has been uncovered nearly 70 years later in a secret letter from a wartime spymaster. As discovered in a letter from former MI5 spy Lord Victor Rothschild to the artist Laurence Fish, it was believed that Nazis devised bombs dressed up as chocolate, with a delay mechanism which would cause the bomb to explode as it was opened.

Neanderthals used medicinal plants

[Popular Archaeology]  An international team of researchers, led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the University of York, has provided the first molecular evidence that Neanderthals not only ate a range of cooked plant foods, but also understood its nutritional and medicinal qualities. Until recently Neanderthals, who disappeared between 30,000 and 24,000 years ago, were thought to be predominantly meat-eaters.

48 Tons of Silver Recovered From World War II Shipwreck

[ABC News]  An American company has made what is being called the heaviest and deepest recovery of precious metals from a shipwreck,...the SS Gairsoppa, a sunken British cargo ship in three miles of water off the coast of Ireland. Between the Gairsoppa, torpedoed by a German U-boat during World War II, and the SS Mantola, sunk by a German submarine during World War I, Odyssey said in a press release that about 240 tons of silver may be recovered by the end of the operation.

Has Mona Lisa's skeleton been found?

[Daily Mail]  Archaeologists are convinced they've unearthed the secret behind the world's most famous painting, the Mona Lisa. Buried beneath the floor of a convent in Florence, Italy they've found a skeleton they believe belonged to Lisa Gherardini, the model who posed for Leonardo's da Vinci's mysterious masterpiece.

300 000 year old flint tools found in Northern France

[Past Horizons]  The deposits at Etricourt Manancourt in the Picardie region of France documents the history of early European settlements, revealing at least five prehistoric levels, ranging between 300,000 and 80,000 years old.

Famous Leonardo self portrait in critical condition

[Reuters]    Art conservation and restoration experts recently concluded weeks of tests on the famous self portrait of one of history's greatest geniuses, sketched in the early 1500s when he was in his 60s.And the diagnosis is decidedly grim. The non-invasive studies confirmed art experts' worst fears: the drawing is seriously damaged and deteriorating and any restoration would be delicate and risky to say the least.

Ancient Hellenistic Harbor Discovered in Acre

[Bloomberg]  An ancient harbor where warships may have docked 2,300 years ago has been discovered by archaeologists in the Israeli port city of Acre.  The harbor, the largest and most important found in Israel from the Hellenistic period, was uncovered during archaeological excavations carried out as part of a seawall conservation project, the Israel Antiquities Authority said today.

Ancient Maya dam uncovered that created a man made 20 million gallon reservoir

[Daily Mail]  The largest ancient dam built by the ancient Maya of Central America, it was constructed from cut stone, rubble and earth. Stunned researchers found the mysterious dam stretched more than 260 feet in length, stood about 33 feet high and held about 20 million gallons of water in a man-made reservoir.

Three Kingdoms' tomb holding warrior discovered

[MSNBC]  One of the biggest finds was a life-size bronze horse, the largest ever found in China. It measures 5.3 feet long and by 5.3 feet tall (163 by 163 centimeters). "The horse figurine is in standing posture, has erected ears, protruded eyes, opened mouth, long and broad neck, upright mane and drooped tail," writes archaeologist Liu Jiangsheng.

Climate was hotter in Roman, medieval times than now: Study

[The Register UK]   A new study measuring temperatures over the past two millennia has concluded that in fact the temperatures seen in the last decade are far from being the hottest in history.
A large team of scientists making a comprehensive study of data from tree rings say that in fact global temperatures have been on a falling trend for the past 2,000 years and they have often been noticeably higher than they are today - despite the absence of any significant amounts of human-released carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back then.

Engineering technology reveals eating habits of giant dinosaurs

[PhysOrg]  High-tech technology, traditionally usually used to design racing cars and aeroplanes, has helped researchers to understand how plant-eating dinosaurs fed 150 million years ago.    

Top Nazi war criminal located in Hungary

[AFP] The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre has confirmed that Laszlo Csatary, accused of complicity in the killings of 15,700 Jews, had been tracked down to the Hungarian capital. "I confirm that Laszlo Csatary has been identified and found in Budapest," the centre's director Efraim Zuroff told AFP.

Trigger for past rapid sea level rise discovered

[University of Bristol]  Towards the end of the last ice age, at the time of mammoths and primitive humans, the climate naturally warmed. This started to melt ice at increasingly high elevations, eventually reaching and melting the saddle area between the ice domes. This triggered a vicious circle in which the melting saddle would lower, reach warmer altitudes and melt even more rapidly until the saddle had completely melted. In just 500 years, the saddles disappeared and only the ice domes remained.