About 2,500 years ago, the Greek historian Herodotus described, in gory detail, how Scythian warriors of central Asia scalped vanquished foes. Archaeologists now have identified the first hard evidence of that practice. According to their study, four previously unearthed adult male skulls, now housed in two Russian museums, come from Scythians whose scalps were removed after they were killed in battle.http://louis6j6sheehan6esquire.wordpress.com
An intermittent trail of incisions runs, ear-to-ear, horizontally across the back of each of the skulls, says Eileen M. Murphy of Queen�s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Metal tools made the marks during a process in which skin was peeled off the back and top of the head, she holds. Three of the skulls came from a Scythian cemetery. The fourth skull came from a mummified body discovered in a tomb of Scythian royals. Both sites are in southern Siberia.http://louis6j6sheehan6esquire.wordpress.com
Analysis of the skeletons belonging to the skulls indicates that these individuals died of sword and battle-ax wounds, Murphy and her colleagues report in the January American Journal of Archaeology.
Additional examinations of skeletons at Russian sites will probably support Herodotus� description of scalping as a widespread Scythian practice, the researchers add. But the historian may have been wrong in calling Scythians cannibals, Murphy contends. Prior skeletal evidence suggests only that Scythians sometimes removed the flesh from the dead bodies of comrades as part of burial rituals, a fairly common practice in the ancient world. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . http://louis6j6sheehan6esquire.wordpress.com
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
anthrax 4.ant.100 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . After a seven-year investigation of the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, the FBI was preparing in July to charge a single scientist, Bruce Ivins of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, with the crimes. To trace the source of the anthrax, the FBI used “microbial forensics,” a new approach that combines established microbiology techniques with DNA sequencing. By 2002, sequencing had narrowed possible sources to about 20 laboratories worldwide. Ivins’s strange protocols allowed inspectors to narrow the search further.http://louis9j9sheehan9esquire.wordpress.com
Anthrax is a stable bacterium: Growing it once seldom produces detectable mutations. Contrary to common practice, however, Ivins dumped material from 35 different anthrax cultures into a single flask, thus mixing a number of mutant strains. Examining agar plates cultured from anthrax in the letters, investigators spotted mutant colonies and then sequenced them. This yielded a characteristic genetic signature of four mutations that was traceable to Ivins’s flask. Before the FBI formally indicted him, Ivins killed himself.http://louis9j9sheehan9esquire.wordpress.com
While microbial forensics holds promise for unraveling disease outbreaks, the FBI’s discovery also has political implications: The attacks originated in a U.S. Army lab, a fact that raises questions about security in light of the massive biodefense expansion under the Bush administration. Since 2001 the government has pledged $57 billion toward bioweapons research and has funded nearly 15,000 scientists to work with bioweapons agents. How to vet these scientists and prevent further germ releases—accidental or intentional—remains unclear. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Anthrax is a stable bacterium: Growing it once seldom produces detectable mutations. Contrary to common practice, however, Ivins dumped material from 35 different anthrax cultures into a single flask, thus mixing a number of mutant strains. Examining agar plates cultured from anthrax in the letters, investigators spotted mutant colonies and then sequenced them. This yielded a characteristic genetic signature of four mutations that was traceable to Ivins’s flask. Before the FBI formally indicted him, Ivins killed himself.http://louis9j9sheehan9esquire.wordpress.com
While microbial forensics holds promise for unraveling disease outbreaks, the FBI’s discovery also has political implications: The attacks originated in a U.S. Army lab, a fact that raises questions about security in light of the massive biodefense expansion under the Bush administration. Since 2001 the government has pledged $57 billion toward bioweapons research and has funded nearly 15,000 scientists to work with bioweapons agents. How to vet these scientists and prevent further germ releases—accidental or intentional—remains unclear. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Monday, December 15, 2008
rat 7.rat.001001 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire . A 4-million-year-old rat skull found at a coastal site in Uruguay set a new world record in the giant rodent category. The 21-inch-long skull is likely to have belonged to a creature as large as a bull and as heavy as a small car, according to researchers’ estimates. The previous record holder was a 1,500-pound, 8-million-year-old guinea pig discovered in Venezuela a few years ago.http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire2.wordpress.com
Ernesto Blanco, a paleontologist at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, says that the new champion rat, Josephoartigasia monesi, lived in forests near river deltas or estuaries and roamed around South America among saber-toothed marsupial tigers and huge, flightless, carnivorous birds. http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire2.wordpress.com Blanco surmises that because of its small teeth and weak jaw, the rat probably survived on vegetables and fruit. Its fate was sealed about 3 million years ago when the continent of South America hooked up to North America via the Panama land bridge. That connection probably allowed predatory cats and bears from North America to extend their range and wipe out the gentle giant.
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.
Ernesto Blanco, a paleontologist at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, Uruguay, says that the new champion rat, Josephoartigasia monesi, lived in forests near river deltas or estuaries and roamed around South America among saber-toothed marsupial tigers and huge, flightless, carnivorous birds. http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire2.wordpress.com Blanco surmises that because of its small teeth and weak jaw, the rat probably survived on vegetables and fruit. Its fate was sealed about 3 million years ago when the continent of South America hooked up to North America via the Panama land bridge. That connection probably allowed predatory cats and bears from North America to extend their range and wipe out the gentle giant.
Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire.
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