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Planetary Discovery around Ultracool Starby Paul Gilster on April 28, 2017 I have a special enthusiasm for microlensing as a means of exoplanet discovery. With microlensing, you never know what you’re going to come up with. Transits are easier to detect when the planet is close to its star, and hence transits more frequently. Radial velocity likewise sends its loudest signal when a planet is large and close. Microlensing, detecting the ‘bending’ of light from a background object as it is affected by a nearer star’s gravitational field, can turn up a planet whether near to its star or far,...

LONDON (AP) — British officials say they've been unable to trace the rightful heirs to a trove of gold coins found stashed inside a piano and worth a "life-changing" amount of money. The school that owns the piano and the tuner who found the gold are now in line for a windfall after a coroner investigating the find declared it treasure. But a couple who owned the piano for three decades before donating it to their local school will likely miss out. Coroner John Ellery said Thursday that, despite a thorough investigation and a public appeal for information, "we simply...

2016 has revealed an amazing array of archaeological discoveries, pushing the boundaries of scientific research and our understanding of the past. The following list represents 10 of the most exciting announcements across the year. 1 – Bronze Age stilt houses unearthed in East Anglian Fens Archaeologists have revealed exceptionally well-preserved Bronze Age dwellings during a series of excavations throughout the year at Must Farm quarry in the East Anglian fens that is providing an extraordinary insight into domestic life 3,000 years ago.

Archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have begun exploring a previously unknown ancient city at a village called Vlochós, five hours north of Athens. The archaeological remains are scattered on and around the Strongilovoúni hill on the great Thessalian plains and can be dated to several historical periods

Archeologists with the University of Western Australia have discovered a mysterious set of stone structures not far from the Dampier Archipelago in northwestern Australia. If current theories about the structures are confirmed, they could potentially rewrite much of Western Australia’s early history, not to mention human history. ... The structures are a set of rooms cut into stone, some of which display evidence of early agricultural practices such as grinding seeds and storing shells. This find could change current thinking about civilizations of the time, which were previously believed to have been hunter-gatherer groups. ... The Dampier Archipelago formed around...

To boldly go . . . back to 1995! Wednesday at a Television Critics Association panel in Beverly Hills, Calif., Bryan Fuller, executive producer of “Star Trek: Discovery” (premiering in January on CBS, then airing on CBS All Access), revealed that a woman will be the new show’s main character. But this isn’t the typical self-righteous Hollywood back-slappery that launched a thousand Medium.com essays. Nor is it the Girl Power! casting of summer’s “Ghostbusters” flop, nor the newly announced all-female “Ocean’s Eight” caper. “Star Trek” has always done diversity the right way.

Judicial Watch Seeks Testimony of Hillary Clinton FBI Director Undermines the Rule of Law Comey’s FBI Helped Convict Navy Reservist who “Handled Classified Materials Inappropriately” Judicial Watch Seeks Testimony of Hillary Clinton First the good news, the FBI/Justice Department cover-up won’t derail Judicial Watch’s independent effort to get at the truth about the Clinton email scandal. In fact, a few hours ago we submitted to a federal court judge a request for permission to depose former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. We also asked permission to depose the Director of Office of Correspondence and Records of the Executive Secretariat...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it submitted a request for permission to depose former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; the Director of Office of Correspondence and Records of the Executive Secretariat (“S/ES-CRM”) Clarence Finney; and the former Director of Information Resource Management of the Executive Secretariat (“S/ES-IRM”) John Bentel. Today’s request arises in a Judicial Watch Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit before U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan that seeks records about the controversial employment status of Huma Abedin, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Clinton. The lawsuit was reopened because of revelations about the...

Unearthed: the humble origins of world diplomacy By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent 19 January 2003 Archaeologists have discovered evidence of an invasion of the Middle East by one of the world's first superpowers, which destroyed much of the region 33 centuries ago. Under the ruins of a 3,800-year-old royal palace in western Syria they have found part of an ancient diplomatic and administrative library, the most important archaeological discovery of its kind for more than 20 years. Accounts on clay tablets describe the region's conquest by one of the Bronze Age's superpowers, the Hittite Empire, in 1340BC. This helped to...

Full title: Clinton Email Update: Judicial Watch Releases Former Clinton Deputy Chief of Staff Huma Abedin Deposition Testimony (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released the deposition transcript of Huma Abedin, former deputy chief of staff to Hillary Clinton throughout her four years as secretary of state and who also had an email account on the clintonemail.com system. The deposition transcript is available here. Abedin testified it was Clinton’s decision to use her non-state.gov email; to her knowledge that only Hillary Clinton, Abedin and Chelsea Clinton had accounts on the clintonemail.com system; and that the clintonemail.com system may have interfered...

Full title: Clinton Email Update: Judicial Watch Releases Clinton Email Deposition Testimony of Karin Lang, Director, Executive Secretariat Staff (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released the deposition transcript of Karin Lang, director of executive secretariat staff and designated representative for the State Department. The Lang transcript is available here . Lang was designated by the State Department as its 30(b)(6) witness. A 30(b)(6) witness is assigned to provide the agency’s testimony on the Clinton email issue. Lang testified that key State Department federal recordkeeping officials did not know that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her top aide...

Full title: Clinton Email Update: Judicial Watch Releases Clinton Email Deposition Testimony of Amb. Stephen Mull, Former Executive Secretary for State Department (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released the deposition transcript of Ambassador Stephen D. Mull, executive secretary of the State Department from June 2010 to October 2012, who suggested that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton be issued a State Department BlackBerry, which would protect her identity and would also be subject to FOIA requests. The Mull transcript is availablehere. Amb. Mull now serves as the State Department’s lead coordinator for Iran nuclear implementation. Amb. Mull’s testimony and...

Full title: Federal Judge Orders Clinton IT Witness To Produce Reported Immunity Agreement, Legal Basis for Fifth Amendment Claims (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today announced that a court order was issued by Judge Emmet G. Sullivan requiring Bryan Pagliano, the Clinton State Department IT official who reportedly provided support for the Clinton email system, to produce to the court his reported immunity agreement and the legal basis for the Fifth Amendment claims he planned to assert in Judicial Watch’s discovery into the Clinton email system. The order delays Mr. Pagliano’s deposition, which had been scheduled for Monday, June 6....

The man believed to have set up and maintained Hillary Clinton’s private email server will assert his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination and refuse to answer questions as part of an open records lawsuit against the State Department. Bryan Pagliano will decline to answer questions from Judicial Watch, the conservative legal watchdog group, during a deposition scheduled for Monday, his lawyers wrote in a court filing on Wednesday afternoon. The move forecloses the possibility that Pagliano would break his months of silence about the server issue, even as scrutiny has intensified on his role. Pagliano’s lawyers told Judicial Watch more...

Full title: Clinton Email Update: Judicial Watch Releases Former Clinton Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills Deposition Testimony (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released the deposition transcript of Cheryl D. Mills, Hillary Clinton’s chief of staff throughout her four years as secretary of state. Though instructed by her attorney not to answer several questions, the transcript is available here. Mills was deposed last week as part of the discovery granted to Judicial Watch by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan in response to its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s unsecured, non-government...

First Deposition Testimony from Clinton Email Discovery Released State Department Office of Inspector General Slams Clinton Email Practices Justice Department Documents Reveal the Widespread Use of Fast and Furious Weapons by Major Mexican Drug Cartels – Linked to at Least 69 Killings Memorial Day: Why We Fight First Deposition Testimony from Clinton Email Discovery Released The court-ordered discovery to uncover details about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email system has produced the first testimony from her top aides. This week we released the deposition transcript of Ambassador Lewis Lukens, former deputy assistant secretary of state and executive director...

Judicial Watch Begins Discovery in Clinton Email Matter Judicial Watch Seeks Hillary Clinton Testimony Pakistani with Fake Ecuadorean Passport Enters U.S. via Mexico Multiple Times Judicial Watch Begins Discovery in Clinton Email Matter Our investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s email system entered a significant new phase this week. We announced a schedule of depositions of her top aides, Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, as well as top State Department official Patrick Kennedy, and former State IT employee Bryan Pagliano. Their testimony is about the creation and operation of Clinton’s non-government email system. The first witness, Lewis...

Credit: Canadian Space Agency, via TheTelegraph ====================================================================================================================== William Gadoury, a 15 year old Mayan history enthusiast who lives in Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, Quebec, has, according to Le Journal de Montréal, used satellite imagery to make associations between ancient Mayan city locations and constellations, and in so doing, may have actually discovered a site that has not been previously known. According to the news report, Gadoury, who claims to have been long interested in the Mayan culture, gained access to satellite imagery—after applying the Geographic Information System he found a correlation between 22 constellations and 117 Mayan cities. But, in so...

Third rebuke of administration’s transparency this yearThe White House showed “bad faith” in how it handled an open-records request for global warming data, a federal court ruled Monday, issuing yet another stinging rebuke to the administration for showing a lack of transparency. For President Obama, who vowed to run the most transparent government in U.S. history, Judge Amit P. Mehta’s ruling granting legal “discovery” in an open-records case — the third time this year a judge has ordered discovery — is an embarrassing black eye. In this most recent case, the Competitive Enterprise Institute was trying to force the White...

A second federal judge has granted discovery to a watchdog group seeking records from Hillary Clinton’s State Department, an unusual move that gives new credibility to claims that State officials intentionally evaded public records laws. U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth issued the ruling on Tuesday in response to a 2014 lawsuit by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which has been suing the State Department for documents related to the Benghazi attack. Judge Lamberth cited “evidence of government wrong-doing” while issuing the decision. “[W]here there is evidence of government wrong-doing and bad faith, as here, limited discovery is appropriate,...