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Italian Skeletons Reveal Old World Diseases By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News Columbus: Syphilis Spreader? April 12, 2004 — Researchers investigating Italian cemeteries have found further evidence to confirm that syphilis and rheumatoid arthritis plagued the Americas long before the arrival of Columbus. Involving various sites throughout Italy, the study examined 688 skeletons dating from the Bronze Age to the Black Plague epidemic of 1485-1486. The remains were investigated for the presence of bony alterations characteristic of rheumatoid arthritis, gout, spondyloarthropathy and syphilis-causing organisms, called treponemes. Indeed, syphilis is known to scar and deform bones. Legend holds that Columbus and his...

Discoveries reveal a flourishing Dunhuang 1,000 years ago www.chinaview.cn 2004-03-21 15:20:33 LANZHOU, March 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Documents and other cultural objects unearthed from China's Mogao Grottoes, in northwest Gansu Province, provide evidence that Dunhuang was a flourishing international trade city over 1,000 years ago. Professor Zheng Binglin, also a research fellow with the Dunhuang Studies Institute of the Lanzhou University, made the conclusion based on his research on documents and other cultural objects of late Tang Dynasty (618-907) and Five Dynasties period (907-960). Dunhuang city, located in the western part of Gansu, is now a famous tourism city because it...

Saddam trial could reveal US's dirty secrets January 25 2004 at 11:00AM Washington - Saddam Hussein's loyalists may not be the only ones edgy about the prospect of a war crimes trial for the former Iraqi leader. Vexing questions also could surface about how much the United States helped Iraq during its eight-year war with Iran - and whether it tried to stop Iraqi atrocities. Among the questions that could arise in any such trial: What did US officials know about products shipped to Iraq that could have been used for weapons? What intelligence did they provide Iraq that could...

Friday, Jan. 16, 2004. Relics of Ancient Burial Rites Reveal Siberian Trade Route By Charles Q. Choi New York Times Service YEKATERINBURG, Russia -- In a medieval Siberian graveyard a few miles south of the Arctic Circle, Russian scientists have unearthed mummies roughly 1,000 years old, clad in copper masks, hoops and plates -- burial rites that archaeologists say they have never seen before. Among 34 shallow graves were five mummies shrouded in copper and blankets of reindeer, beaver, wolverine or bear fur. Unlike the remains of Egyptian pharaohs, the scientists say, the Siberian bodies were mummified by accident. The...

Libyans to reveal just how close they were to making a nuclear bomb By Andrew Buncombe in Washington and Francis Elliott 21 December 2003 A Libyan team last night began talks in Vienna, headquarters of the UN's atomic energy agency, to reveal just how close the North African nation and its maverick leader, Muammar Gaddafi, came to possessing nuclear weapons. The move follows Friday's startling announcement - on the eve of today's 15th anniversary of Lockerbie - that Libya will dismantle its programmes to create weapons of mass destruction after months of secret negotiations with Britain and the US. Colonel...

Dr. Paul Ekman, the professor of psychology who has become the world's most famous face reader, is much in demand these days. The Dalai Lama and Dr. Ekman, who have met twice, found such synergy in their understanding of human emotions that the Dalai Lama gave Dr. Ekman $50,000 in seed money to learn how to improve emotional balance in schoolteachers and other people in high pressure jobs. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency and state and local police forces have turned to Dr. Ekman for help learning to read subtle emotional cues from the faces, voices...

<p>HAMBURG, Germany - The hijacking conspiracy spawned in this northern port city likely was broader and deeper than previously reported, according to investigative files amassed by German authorities since Sept. 11, 2001.</p> <p>At least five and possibly seven presumed al-Qaida operatives appear to have fled Hamburg in the days before Sept. 11, tracing a hurried route through Turkey, Pakistan or the United Arab Emirates to what they believed was the sanctuary of an al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan.</p>

<p>At the dawn of the U.S. shuttle program, NASA engineers weighed the risks posed by nagging failures in the twin rocket boosters that propel the spacecraft into orbit.</p> <p>They quickly discovered severe heat damage in the O-rings designed to stop searing gas from spewing from joints in the rockets. NASA weighed the risks and decided the flaw was "tolerable," an analysis that held for 24 flights.</p>

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A veil of secrecy will begin to rise Wednesday when a congressional committee reveals some of the information that U.S. spy agencies knew about suspected terrorist activity before the September 11 attacks -- including the disclosure that analysts knew al Qaeda had previously plotted to use aircraft as terrorist weapons. The recently declassified documents will be made public for the first time during an open hearing of the joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee. One of the main questions investigators are probing: Could the September 11 attacks have been prevented? Joint Senate House Intelligence hearings CNN plans coverage of...