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The odd creature was discovered by Percy and Connie Emert in Jeresey Shore, PA on Sunday. “We have bird feeders out in our yard, and the squirrels are constantly into them,” Connie told Accuweather.com. “My husband traps them and then sets them free elsewhere so they don’t get into your bird feeders.” She said she had seen the little creature on the property before, but no one would believe her. “I kept telling my husband I saw a purple one out in the yard. ‘Oh sure you did’ he kept telling me,” she added. “Well, he checked the trap around...

A huge, emerging crack has been discovered in one of Antarctica's glaciers, with a NASA plane mission providing the first-ever detailed airborne measurements of a major iceberg breakup in progress. NASA's Operation Ice Bridge, the largest airborne survey of Earth's polar ice ever flown, is in the midst of its third field campaign from Punta Arenas, Chile. .. The glaciers of the Antarctic, and Greenland, Ice Sheets, commonly birth icebergs that break off from the main ice streams where they flow in to the sea, a process called calving. The crack was found in c, which last calved a significant...

Gigantic amoebas have been found in the Mariana Trench, the deepest region on Earth. During a July 2011 voyage to the Pacific Ocean chasm, researchers with Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and National Geographic engineers deployed untethered landers, called dropcams, equipped with digital video and lights to explore the largely mysterious region of the deep sea. The team documented the deepest known existence of xenophyophores, single-celled animals exclusively found in deep-sea environments. Xenophyophores are noteworthy for their size, with individual cells often exceeding 4 inches (10 centimeters), their extreme abundance on the seafloor and their role as...

An alien world blacker than coal, the darkest planet known, has been discovered in the galaxy. The world in question is a giant the size of Jupiter known as TrES-2b. NASA's Kepler spacecraft detected it lurking around the yellow sun-like star GSC 03549-02811 some 750 light years away in the direction of the constellation Draco. The researchers found this gas giant reflects less than 1 percent of the sunlight falling on it, making it darker than any planet or moon seen up to now. [The Strangest Alien Planets] "It's just ridiculous how dark this planet is, how alien it is...

D'Andria said the structure of the tomb and the writings on it proved that it belonged to St. Philip the Apostle, who is recognized as a martyr in the history of ChristianityThe tomb of St. Philip the Apostle, one of the original 12 disciples of Christianity's central figure Jesus Christ, has been discovered during the ongoing excavations in Turkey's south-western province of Denizli. Italian professor Francesco D'Andria, the head of the excavation team at the Hierapolis ancient city in Denizli, told reporters on Tuesday that experts had reached the tomb of St. Philip whose name is mentioned in the Bible...

A string of a dozen volcanoes, at least several of them active, has been found beneath the frigid seas near Antarctica, the first such discovery in that region. Some of the peaks tower nearly 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) above the ocean floor — nearly tall enough to break the water's surface. "That's a big volcano. That's a very big volcano. If that was on land it would be quite remarkable," said Philip Leat, a vulcanologist with the British Antarctic Survey who led a seafloor mapping expedition to the region in 2007 and 2010. The group of 12 underwater mountains lies...

A well-preserved, 3,000-year-old four-room house from the Biblical Kingdom of Israel has been discovered on Haifa’s southern coast by University of Haifa archaeologists. They also found remains of a Persian city, dating back 2,400 years, and of a 1,500-year-old Byzantine town. The discoveries at the Shikmona Nature Reserve site involved what experts said was detective work, due to the site's having been excavated 42 years ago but since covered with garbage and earth. Archaeologists from Haifa University re-examined the structure and were amazed to find that it had remained well preserved and is in fact the best-preserved "Four-Room House" dating...

A new record was set on 29 January 2011 when the science team operating a new prototype telescope discovered not one Near-Earth Asteroid, not two, but nineteen in a single night! “This record number of discoveries shows that PS1 is the world’s most powerful telescope for this kind of study,” said Nick Kaiser, head of the Pan-STARRS project. One of the most difficult jobs astronomers have in outreach is encouraging spending in asteroid discovery programs, to give us sufficient warning of any potential asteroids that will collide with Earth, while avoiding the temptation to whip up false panic. The risk...

The ingredients of the drink, founded by John Pemberton, a medicinal pharmacist in 1886, have always been a mystery. However, Thisamericanlife.org claims to have discovered a list in a photograph in a newspaper article giving the ingredients and exact quantities to make the drink.

Surveillance video appears to show drug smugglers using a catapult to transport narcotics over the border between Mexico and Arizona near Naco. (Video courtesy of U.S. Customs and Border Protection)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US astronomers have discovered a huge black hole, a million times the mass of the sun, in a nearby galaxy -- a finding that could help better understand the origins of the universe. The announcement Monday by the American Astronomical Society said the surprise discovery in a so-called "dwarf" galaxy offers evidence that black holes -- regions of space where not even light can escape -- formed before the buildup of galaxies. "This galaxy gives us important clues about a very early phase of galaxy evolution that has not been observed before," said Amy Reines, a researcher...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two huge, unexplained gamma ray emitting bubbles have been discovered at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, US astronomers said Tuesday. Masked by a fog of gamma rays that appears throughout the sky, the bubbles form a feature spanning 50,000 light-years and could be the remnant of a supersized black hole eruption or the outflows from a burst of star formation, the astronomers said. The structure spans more than half of the visible sky, from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus, and it may be millions of years old, the astronomers said in a paper...

A solar system containing up to seven planets orbiting a sun-like star has been detected 127 light years from Earth. The planetary system is believed to be the largest ever discovered beyond the sun. Astronomers have confirmed the presence of five planets and have tantalising evidence of two more. And it comes as Nasa has said that it plans to make an announcement about an 'intriguing' planetary system that it has discovered using the Kepler space telescope Kepler looks at the telltale 'wobble' as planets pass in front of distant stars and, earlier this year, astronomers announced that it had...

Fossils of what could be the oldest animal bodies have been discovered in Australia, pushing back the clock on when animal life first appeared on Earth to at least 70 million years earlier than previously thought. The results suggest that primitive sponge-like creatures lived in ocean reefs about 650 million years ago. Digital images of the fossils suggest the animals were about a centimeter in size (the width of your small fingertip) and had irregularly shaped bodies with a network of internal canals. The shelly fossils, found beneath a 635 million-year-old glacial deposit in South Australia, represent the earliest evidence...

Ruins of a fire temple dating back to the Sassanid era have recently been discovered during a series of archaeological excavations in the Vigol region near Kashan in central Iran. The discovery was made during the latest season of excavations, which are being carried out by a team of archaeologists led by Mohsen Javeri and began in mid-June, the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization announced in a press release on Monday. The cruciform temple has four entrances leading to the ruins of a fireplace embellished with unique stucco designs, Javeri said. The team has also unearthed pieces of ornate...

Jerusalem, July 11, 2010 -- A tiny clay fragment – dating from the 14th century B.C.E. – that was found in excavations outside Jerusalem's Old City walls contains the oldest written document ever found in Jerusalem, say researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The find, believed to be part of a tablet from a royal archives, further testifies to the importance of Jerusalem as a major city in the Late Bronze Age, long before its conquest by King David, they say. The clay fragment was uncovered recently during sifting of fill excavated from beneath a 10th century B.C.E. tower...

Massimo Osanna, head of archaeology at Basilica University, said that the team working at Torre Satriano near Potenza in what was once Magna Graecia had unearthed a sloping roof with red and black decorations, with "masculine" and "feminine" components inscribed with detailed directions on how they slotted together. Professor Christopher Smith, director of the British School at Rome, said that the discovery was "the clearest example yet found of mason's marks of the time. It looks as if someone was instructing others how to mass-produce components and put them together in this way"" he told The Times. Professor Osanna suggested...

A strange and mysterious new object in space may the brightest and long-lasting "micro-quasar" seen thus far, a miniature version of the brightest objects in the universe. The object suddenly began pumping out radio waves last year in the relatively nearby galaxy M82, some 10 million light-years away. Its discovery was announced Tuesday. "The new object, which appeared in May 2009, has left us scratching our heads — we've never seen anything quite like this before," said researcher Tom Muxlow, a radio astronomer at the University of Manchester's Jodrell Bank Observatory in England. M82 is a "starburst galaxy," one that...

LAS VEGAS, Dec. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Recently some rare and unreleased John Lennon recordings were discovered in a vault. These recordings were taped on August 19, 1980. They were done separately from the mysteriously missing video footage that was filmed at what is believed to be John Lennon's last recording session with his band prior to his death. Even more incredible, these recordings have never been released until now.

Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.) city ruins have been discovered in Wuyuan County, Hetao Plain, China's Inner Mongolia. It's said that the scale of the city ruins is rarely seen in Hetao Plain. The city ruins are located in Taal Town of Wuyuan County, Bayannaoer City in China's Inner Mongolia and once covered with grassland. The city wall was about 2 km long and 1 km wide and is made up of compressed earth. The east wall is 2 meters high and remarkably preserved, while, the south wall has already collapsed and is now a road base 80 centimeters high...

The ancient footprints of the artisans who built a stunning 1,700-year-old mosaic floor in Lod were discovered recently, when conservators from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) were in the process of detaching the huge work of art from the ground. As the conservation experts worked on the plaster bedding to be done before detaching the mosaic, they were surprised to notice there were ancient foot and sandal prints beneath it. Clearly, the builders that had worked on the floor sometimes wore their sandals, and sometimes worked in their bare feet...

The largest-ever known number of coins from the time of Bar-Kochba, the Jewish leader against Roman invaders, has been discovered in the Judean Hills by cave researchers from Hebrew and Bar-Ilan Universities.

A newly found primordial blob may represent the most massive object ever discovered in the early universe, researchers announced today. The gas cloud, spotted from 12.9 billion light-years away, could signal the earliest stages of galaxy formation back when the universe was just 800 million years old. "I have never heard about any [similar] objects that could be resolved at this distance," said Masami Ouchi, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Pasadena, Calif. "It's kind of record-breaking." A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion kilometers). An object 12.9 billion light-years...

(IsraelNN.com) Saudi Arabia-funded textbooks distributed in American schools teach that Muslims discovered America and that Jesus was a Palestinian, according to repot by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research. Anti-Zionist propaganda is prominent in the books that were written at Middle East centers at universities, including Harvard, which received a $20 million donation from Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal in 2005. The textbooks, distributed in all 50 states in the U.S., also teach that the Almighty revealed the Koran to the Muslim prophet Mohammed and that Jewish civilization contributed "very little" to the arts and sciences.

As if the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy weren't vexing enough, another baffling cosmic puzzle has been discovered. Patches of matter in the universe seem to be moving at very high speeds and in a uniform direction that can't be explained by any of the known gravitational forces in the observable universe. Astronomers are calling the phenomenon "dark flow." The stuff that's pulling this matter must be outside the observable universe, researchers conclude. When scientists talk about the observable universe, they don't just mean as far out as the eye, or even the most powerful telescope, can see....

MADRID (AFP) - Spanish astronomers Wednesday announced the discovery of the smallest planet discovered to date outside the solar system, located 30 light years from earth. The planet, "GJ 436T", was detected through a new technique which "will allow us to discover in less than 10 years the first planet resembling earth in terms of mass and orbit," said Ignasi Ribas of Spain's CSIC scientific research institute. It was discovered by a team led by Ribas through its gravitational pull on other planets already discovered around the same star in the constellation of Leo. "GJ 436T" has a mass five...

Italy: Plague victims discovered after 1500 years Rome, 10 April (AKI) - The remains of hundreds of victims, believed to have been killed in a plague that swept Italy 1500 years ago, have been found south of Rome. The bodies of men, women and children were found in Castro dei Volsci, in the region of Lazio, during excavations carried out by Lazio archaeological office. News of the extraordinary discovery was reported in the magazine, "Archeologia Viva". The victims are believed to have been victims of the Justinian Plague, a pandemic that killed as many as 100 million people around the...

LUXOR, Egypt (AFP) - Egyptian and European archeologists on Saturday announced they had discovered a giant statue of an ancient pharaonic queen on the spectacular south Egypt site of the Colossi of Memnon. The statue represents Queen Tiy, the wife of 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III, and stands 3.62 metres high (almost 12 feet). It was discovered around the site of the massive Colossi of Memnon twin statues that command the road to Luxor's famed Valley of the Kings. Two sphinx representing Tiy and Amenhotep III as well as 10 statues in black granite of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet, who...

New Babylonian town found Azzaman, March 19, 2008 Iraqi archaeologists have discovered a new Babylonian town 180 kilometers south of Baghdad. The head archaeologist Mohammed Yahya said the town is more than 20,000 square meters in area and includes administrative quarters, temples and other buildings of “magnificent and splendid design” Yahya, who is the head of the provincial Antiquities Department in the Province of Diwaniya, where the new Babylonian town was discovered, said he still lacks evidence on the town’s ancient name. The locals call it Shamiya after a provincial district nearby, he said. “We have dug up a sectional...

State wildlife officials say a destructive species known as the zebra mussel has been discovered in California for the first time. Department of Fish and Game spokeswoman Alexia Retallack says a fisherman found the mollusks while fishing in the San Justo Reservoir in San Benito County. Lab tests conducted Monday confirmed that the creatures were zebra mussels, which are known to clog water pipes and boat engines and alter the chemistry of marine ecosystems. State officials plan to conduct further surveys to determine the extent of the infestation and develop a plan to stop its spread. They're asking fishermen and...

Researchers in a remote jungle in Indonesia have discovered a giant rat - five times the size of a typical city rat - and a tiny possum that are apparently new to science. Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is very rare. The discoveries by a team of American and Indonesian scientists are being studied further to confirm their status. The animals were found in the Foja mountains rainforest in eastern Papua province in a June expedition, said US-based Conservation International, which organised the trip along with the Indonesian Institute of Science. "The giant rat is about...

Rare Maya "Death Vase" Discovered Blake de Pastino National Geographic News Updated December 4, 2007 An extremely rare and intricately carved "death vase" has been discovered in the 1,400-year-old grave of an elite figure with ties to the Maya Empire, scientists say. The vase is the first of its kind to be found in modern times, and its contents are opening a window onto ancient rituals of ancestor worship that included food offerings, chocolate enemas, and hallucinations induced by vomiting, experts say. Archaeologists discovered the vase along with parts of a human skeleton while excavating a small "palace" in northwestern...

NEW YORK - Sixty-five years after an American P-38 fighter plane ran out of gas and crash-landed on a beach in Wales, the long-forgotten World War II relic has emerged from the surf and sand where it lay buried. Beach strollers, sunbathers and swimmers often frolicked within a few yards of the aircraft, unaware of its existence until last summer, when unusual weather caused the sand to shift and erode. The revelation of the Lockheed "Lightning" fighter, with its distinctive twin-boom design, has stirred interest in British aviation circles and among officials of the country's aircraft museums, ready to reclaim...

MANILA (AFP) - A new species of flying fox or fruit bat has been discovered on an island south of Manila, it was reported Monday. The orange-coloured bat with a distinctive white-stripped face was discovered in a protected wildlife area on Mindoro Island, the Philippine Star newspaper said quoting the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The discovery was a result of joint research between the University of Kansas' Biodiversity Research Center and a team from the Comparative Biogeography and Conservation of Philippine Vertebrates (CBCPV), the paper said. Known as the Mindoro Stripe-Faced Fruitbat for its striking facial features...

1.5 tons of ancient coins discovered in north China + - 21:20, August 30, 2007 A cellar containing 1.5 tons of ancient coins, including some 2,000-year-old ones, have been discovered by a villager in Changzi County, north China's Shanxi Province. The man in Qianwanhu village discovered the cellar with some 10,000 coins, ranging from 3 cm to 1 cm in diameter, on Aug. 23 when he was digging a channel to place pipes for tap water, said Li Lin, an official of the Changzi Center of Cultural Heritage and Tourism. The "money cellar" was 1.5 meters under the earth, with...

KINGSTON LACY RELICS OFFER INSIGHT INTO ANCIENT EGYPT By 24 Hour Museum Staff 22/08/2007 In total, 212 ostraka have been discovered at Kingston Lacey, of which 175 bear identifiable texts. © NTPL A crate of ancient Egyptian relics discovered at a National Trust property has turned out to be a large collection of inscribed pottery sherds known as 'ostraka', used by scribes to write a variety of notes and messages. Among the pieces, found during work in the cellars of Kingston Lacy in Dorset are over one hundred tax receipts given by officials for poll tax, mortgages and income tax,...

Massive Egyptian fort discovered Mon, 23 Jul 2007 Egypt announced on Sunday the discovery of the largest-ever military city from the Pharaonic period on the edge of the Sinai desert, part of a series of forts that stretched to the Gaza border. "The three forts are part of a string of 11 castles that made up the Horus military road that went from Suez all the way to the city of Rafah on the Egyptian-Palestinian border and dates to the 18th and 19th dynasties (1560-1081 BC)," antiquities supreme Zahi Hawwas said in a statement. Teams have been digging in the...

Major Buddhist site comes to light Tuesday July 10 2007 14:16 IST VIJAYAWADA: A chance digging by mulberry farmers in agricultural lands have uncovered major Buddhist architectural finds in Kanthamanenivarigudem of West Godavari district. Two ancient sites are not only seen as prototypes of the present-day temples, but they have also provided the first-ever proof of the existence of another major Buddhist sect apart from the hitherto known Mahayana, Hinayana and Vajrayana sects. Interestingly, the new finds are just 2 km away from the famous Second Century rock-cut Buddhist caves of Guntupalli or Jilakarragudem in West Godavari, known as the...

Orpheus Tomb Discovered? Updated on: 29.06.2007, 17:51 Published on: 29.06.2007, 17:46 Author: Olga Yoncheva Orpheus sanctuary in Rhodope mountains is with thousand years older than the Egyptian pyramids. The sensational discovery was made by an archaeological expedition which investigated the temple of the Thracians near the village of Tatul, informed BNT. The scientists found 6000-year old buildings with preserved tools made of semi-precious stones, crockery, animal remains. According to the archaeologists now it can be claimed that this is the Tomb of Orpheus, which has been visited of thousands of pilgrims from around the antique world. The sanctuary is one...

The most distant black hole ever found is nearly 13 billion light-years from Earth, astronomers announced today. The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope spotted the bright burst of light the black hole created as it sucked up nearby gas, heating it and causing it to glow very brightly in what's known as a quasar. The distance to the quasar, which sits in the constellation Pisces, was determined by measuring the amount of redshift in the lines of the quasar's spectrum, or prism of light. Because light is "redshifted" to longer wavelengths as an object moves away from an observer, the higher the redshift,...

NEW DELHI - An Indian zoologist said Monday he has found a new species of limbless lizard in a forested area in the country's east. "Preliminary scientific study reveals that the lizard belongs to the genus Sepsophis," said Sushil Kumar Dutta, who led a team of researchers from "Vasundhra," a non-governmental organization, and the North Orissa University. The newly found 7-inch long lizard looks like a scaly, small snake, Dutta said. "It prefers to live in a cool retreat, soft soil and below stones." "The lizard is new to science and is an important discovery. It is not found anywhere...

North America's oldest conifer tree and some ancient scorpion parts are among the fossil treasures found in a newly discovered cave in Illinois. The new discovery also unearthed fossils of plants that may be new to science and revealed evidence of prehistoric forest fires. Scientists date the specimens to nearly 315 million years ago, according to initial findings presented last month at the regional meeting of the Geological Society of America in Lawrence, Kan. "I've never seen anything like this before," said Roy Plotnick, a paleontologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who discovered the cave with students on...

• Cave off limits to public as research continues • ‘It will add to our knowledge’What’s described as “a significant new cave” has been discovered within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in the Central Valley. The discovery was made in August 2006 by four researchers affiliated with the Cave Research Foundation but made public only this week by the National Park Service. The cave has been named Ursa Minor for the Little Dipper constellation. The cave features large passages and rooms – many of which are more than 50 feet wide – and beautiful cave formations, the NPS says....

BOGOTA, Colombia - There's a new chirp in the forest but it may be choked by the slashing and burning of trees by coca farmers, researchers said. The Gorgeted Puffleg, a rare hummingbird that boasts a plumage of violet blue and iridescent green on its throat, has been discovered living in the cloud forests of southwestern Colombia, researchers announced. The species belongs to the Puffleg genus, which appear to have "little cotton balls above their legs," said Luis Mazariegos-Hurtado, who has spent 30 years documenting hummingbirds and founded the Colombian Hummingbird Conservancy. The species — known by its scientific name...

Scientists believe they have for the first time identified an ancient graveyard for gladiators. Analysis of their bones and injuries has given new insight into how they lived, fought and died. The remains were found at Ephesus in Turkey, a major city of the Roman world, BBC Timewatch reports. Gladiators were the sporting heroes of the ancient world. Archaeological records show them celebrated in everything from mosaics to graffiti.Gravestones helped identify the site as a gladiator graveyard

The discovery of a massive ancient lake in Darfur could help explain how the world’s biggest groundwater reservoir came to be under one of the driest parts of the planet. It is also indisputable evidence that the Sahara was once a wet, green region, researchers claim. Eman Ghoneim at the Boston University Center for Remote Sensing in Massachusetts, US, was using satellite imagery to study the ancient hydrology of north-western Sudan when she noticed a dark, 250-kilometre-long segment on the radar images.

Ritual piece of Stonehenge discoveredFeb 20 2007 Sam Burson, Western Mail A MISSING stone which could be an integral part of rituals at Stonehenge may have been discovered by a Welsh archaeologist. Dennis Price, who has done years of research on the mysterious stone structure, believes he has tracked down a previously lost altar stone, identified during one of the first studies of the site in the 17th century. He is convinced it is now in two pieces on either side of a road in a Wiltshire village, just a couple of miles from Stonehenge itself. Mr Price, who is...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17, 2007 – Coalition forces detained 40 suspected insurgents and discovered large weapons caches this week during raids throughout Iraq, military officials said. Coalition forces detained 28 suspected terrorists yesterday during raids at several foreign terrorist safe houses across Iraq. One senior al Qaida IED coordinator and a weapons dealer in Mosul were among those detained, and in Ramadi ten suspects were detained for their alleged association with foreign terrorists. Elsewhere, nine suspected terrorists were detained and a cache of weapons was destroyed in Yusufiyah. The cache contained AK 47 assault rifles, anti-tank mines, mortar switches and...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2006 -- Coalition forces killed two insurgents in Ramadi, and Iraqi police and U.S. soldiers discovered enemy weapons in operations yesterday and today in Iraq. Insurgents attacked coalition forces with yesterday with small-arms fire, and the coalition forces retaliated, firing a precision-guided munition and destroying the building. Two insurgents were killed, and there were no reports of civilian or coalition casualties. Elsewhere in Iraq yesterday, Iraqi police discovered three rockets while on patrol in Kirkuk. The insurgents’ rockets were set on fabricated launchers aimed at Forward Operating Base Warrior and were equipped with improvised timing devices....

1,800-year old painted coffin discovered in north China Chinese archaeologists have discovered an ancient coffin painted with colored drawings dating back to the Eastern Han Dynasty (A.D. 25-220) in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The funeral objects had already been robbed when the coffin was discovered from a tomb in Siziwang Banner. The coffin, in delicate appearance, was well preserved during excavation of the tomb. "The color drawings, painted at inner sides of the coffin, feature daily life and hunting activities," said Wang Dafang, an official with the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Cultural Relic Bureau The most valuable painting on...