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Image Credit : National Geographic (Social) - RUBÉN SALGADO ESCUDERO Archaeologists have discovered an intact jade mask in the tomb of a Maya King at Chochkitam, a little-known Maya polity in northeastern Peten, Guatemala. Contemporary inscriptions indicate that Chochkitam was a royal city with a lineage traced back to Preclassic times. The site was first reported in 1909, with ongoing studies recording three main monumental groups connected by a long central causeway. In a recent announcement on National Geographic, excavations at Chochkitam have led to the discovery of an interlocking jade mask in the burial of a Maya King. Jade...

The landslide occurred in the Hpakant area of northern Kachin state at 04:00 on Wednesday (21:30 GMT Tuesday). Myanmar, also known as Burma, is the world's biggest source of jade, but its mines have seen numerous accidents. The landslide is believed to have been caused by an overflow of rubble discarded from lorries to the open-pit mines. The rubble creates large slopes that can be dangerous in an area denuded of trees, forcing those looking for fragments of the semi-precious stone to labour in hazardous conditions. Rescue teams consisting of about 200 people from Hpakant and the nearby town of...

Amber and other unusual materials such as jade, obsidian and rock crystal have attracted interest as raw materials for the manufacture of decorative items since Late Prehistory and, indeed, amber retains a high value in present-day jewellery. 'Baltic' amber from Scandinavia is often cited as a key material circulating in prehistoric Europe, but in a new study published today in PLOS ONE researchers have found that amber from Sicily was travelling around the Western Mediterranean as early as the 4th Millennium BC - at least 2,000 years before the arrival of any Baltic amber in Iberia... "Interestingly, the first amber...

"The multi-state military training exercise known as Jade Helm 15 is done. There did not turn out to be any FEMA camps populated with anti-Obama patriots plucked from their homes by American special forces. Desert regions of the United States do not seem to have been turned over to ISIS or Russia in an attempt by the government to something-something-something ... Still, it's a shame one-third of Republican voters and half of all Tea Party supporters moved on so fast. If they had not, they might have noticed that after the still-secret exercises of Jade Helm 15, the state of...

An interview from Lars Larson concerning the Jade Helm conspiracy worries.

The Lone Star State’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, is answering citizens’ concerns over Operation Jade Helm 15, a lengthy military campaign to train U.S. troops in an urban setting, with a call to arms of his own: he’s ordered members of the Texas military to monitor the special-ops exercises. Jade Helm, as WND has previously reported, kicks off in July in seven states, including Texas, Utah, California and Colorado. The two-month campaign involves special forces with all four branches of the U.S. military working with local law enforcement, as well as with FBI and DEA officials, to respond to mock...

Wal-Mart closures have citizens concerned. Jade Helm 15 is set to kick off in seven states this summer, sending Special Operations forces from all four main branches of the military onto civilian soil to conduct hostile take-over training – and civil-rights advocates are sounding the alarms. ... The looming Jade Helm exercise, set for July 15 through Sept. 15, labels Texas and Utah as hostile areas. Global Research also reported the military says New Mexico “isn’t much friendlier.” Other states participating: California, Colorado, Arizona and Nevada. Some of the social media commentary so far: “The Pentagon’s ‘Operations Jade Helm 15′:...

Seven Southwestern states will soon be infiltrated by 1,200 military special ops personnel as part of a controversial domestic military training in which some of the elite soldiers will operate undetected among civilians. Operation Jade Helm begins in July and will last for eight weeks. Soldiers will operate in and around towns in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Colorado where some of them wil drop from planes while carrying weapons loaded with blanks in what military officials have dubbed Realistic Military Training. But with residents of the entire states of Texas and Utah dubbed 'hostile' for the...

Footage out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida shot earlier this week shows military and law enforcement practicing the internment of citizens during martial-law style training.

I WANT TO THANK CHRISTIAN FOR GRANTING ME PERMISSION TO SHARE THIS! HUGE MILITARY EXERCISE CAUGHT ON CAMERA IN FORT LAUDERDALE FLORIDA. THANKS TO CHRISTIAN FOR THE FOOTAGE. THIS IS JUST ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF MILITARY BUILD UP PRE "JADE HELM" #JADEHELM 2015

London: A giant jade boulder that could be worth billions of pounds has been discovered in Burma. The 50-tonne block was found half buried in soil and rock in the gem-rich north of the country. Villagers discovered the 5.5 metre-wide boulder in the mountainous state of Kachin, where rebels have been fighting the government for more than 50 years. It is now under armed guard as officials negotiate with rebels about what to do with it. Burma, also known as Myanmar, is one of the world’s biggest producers of precious stones. Jade expert Jason Holt, of Holts Jewellers in Hatton...

Yutu entered a controlled hibernation mode despite mechanical problems on Jan. 24 to weather the 14-day lunar night cycle, but should have woken up days ago. China's mission control has yet to offer an official statement of failture, though it did report that Yutu did not wake up on schedule and was not responding to stimuli.

The six wheeled Yutu rover, which means ‘Jade Rabbit’, has “experienced a mechanical control abnormality” in a new report by China’s official government newspaper, The People’s Daily. ‘Jade Rabbit’ was traversing southwards from the landing site as the incident occurred just days ago – about six weeks into its planned 3 month moon roving expedition. However very few details have emerged or been released by the Chinese government about Yutu’s condition or fate.

Myanmar is the world’s primary source of top-grade jade, but the jade mining industry in the Southeast Asian nation remains mired in a humanitarian catastrophe two years after the reform government took over control -- tens of thousands of workers are exploited and heroin is abused on an unprecedented scale, creating the world’s largest HIV-infected community. ... For less than the price of a beer, an injectionist administers the drug directly into the vein of a miner, delivering as many as 800 separate injections from the same dirty needle. Large quantities of the drug are provided by the mine owners,...

According to a Dec. 4 report from Cage Potato, Bellator ring girl Jade Bryce sees a bright future for women's MMA. Bryce, a blonde bombshell who has appeared in FIGHT magazine and Playboy, thinks women's MMA is just a couple years away from surpassing the men's game in popularity. "I think we have so much amazing talent out there, but we just need more of it to be able to have tournaments," Bryce said. Bellator typically has at least one women's feature fight on each card. However, the talent pool in some female MMA divisions is perhaps too thin to...

A composite photograph of the front and back of the jade gouge shown with a centimeter scale. CREDIT: Les O’Neil, University of Otago The discovery of a 3,300-year-old tool has led researchers to the rediscovery of a "lost" 20th-century manuscript and a "geochemically extraordinary" bit of earth. Discovered on Emirau Island in the Bismark Archipelago (a group of islands off the coast of New Guinea), the 2-inch (5-centimeters) stone tool was probably used to carve, or gouge, wood. It seems to have fallen from a stilted house, landing in a tangle of coral reef that was eventually covered over...

Between processions of nuns and monks leading chants and prayers, tens of thousands of Buddhists have come to a warehouse in San Jose to pray before the Jade Buddha and pose before the popular statue for family snapshots. "I came here to just pray for good things to happen, especially to the community of San Jose," Pauline Bui said Sunday morning at the makeshift temple. "It's for universal peace. That's what this Buddha is for." A financial analyst who lives in San Jose, Bui has brought her mother and two children six or seven times. On a previous visit, she...

IntroductionAn application programmer spends six months perfecting a set of components commonly needed in the large company that employs him. Some of the components were particularly tricky and key pieces required very high quality, reliable and complex exception handling. It has all been tuned to run quickly and efficiently. Thorough testing has demonstrated his success. Part of his idea of “perfection” was to build in a way that the software, even many of the individual components, could easily be reused. But it is surprisingly likely that no one outside of a small group within the project will ever hear of...

Riddle Of The Jade Jewels Reveals Vast Trade Arena ScienceDaily (Jan. 2, 2008) — Analysing the origins of jade used in ancient jewellery has revealed a trading arena that was active for more than 3,000 years and sprawled over 3,000km in Southeast Asia – possibly the largest such network discovered in the region to date. An international research team led by archaeologists from The Australian National University used electron probe microanalysis to examine jade earrings excavated from sites all over Southeast Asia, and were able to pinpoint the origin of the precious stone to a source in Taiwan. “People have...

Ancient jade study sheds light on sea trade Mon Nov 19, 2007 10:07pm GMTBy Tan Ee Lyn HONG KONG (Reuters) - Over 100 ancient jade artifacts in museums across southeast Asia have been traced back to Taiwan, shedding new light on sea trade patterns dating back 5,000 years, researchers said. Using X-ray spectrometers, the international team of scientists analyzed 144 jade ornaments dating from 3,000 BC to 500 AD and found that at least 116 originated from Fengtian in eastern Taiwan. "The chemical composition of jade reveals its origin and ... their analysis determined the relative amounts of iron, magnesium,...