Free Republic

These stunning images reveal the remains of a century old sunken ship that has been preserved beneath freezing Lake Superior. The ship looks almost exactly the same as the day it sunk beneath waves in 1911.At 60 metres long and built in Leith, Scotland in 1897, ‘The Gunilda’ sunk after it struck some rocks and could not be saved. Now, these stunning images have been captured 107 years after the sinking when a small group of divers revisited the vessel. Becky Kagan Schott and her team dove an incredible 270 feet deep to reach the Gunilda and photograph her remains....

WELLINGTON (AFP) – Two blocks of butter have been found intact after nearly a century in an Antarctic hut used by British explorer Robert Falcon Scott on his doomed 1910-12 expedition, a report said. Television New Zealand reported that conservators found the two blocks of New Zealand butter in bags in stables attached to the expedition Hut at Cape Evans in Antarctica. The extreme cold of the polar region has preserved the hut and expedition equipment inside, but recent signs of deterioration had prompted the Antarctic Heritage Trust to launch a preservation project. The trust's Lizzie Meek said the butter...

Photo in the News: Century-Old Fish Caught in Alaska April 6, 2007—A handful of Christians preparing rockfish as part of their traditional fish dinner this Good Friday might be feasting on one of the oldest creatures ever to live in Alaskan waters. Commercial fishers in the Bering Sea recently hauled in the female shortraker rockfish seen above, which scientists say was between 90 and 115 years old. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) used growth rings in the fish's ear bone, or otolith, to make their age estimate. NOAA scientists also found that the fish's advanced years...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A major shift in the century-old policy for suppressing the wildfire danger in Southern California's national forests could be coming this summer. Unchecked growth has left the region's woodlands dangerously overgrown and the new plans will be part legacy of 2003's deadly firestorms, part science and part popular opinion. U.S. Forest Service planners have worked three years on the new management guidelines and they are now poring over nearly 11,000 separate concerns contained in more than 3,000 letters and e-mails sent in response to an initial draft released last year. Plans for the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Los...