Six hours southeast of Atlanta off the Georgia coast on Sapelo Island, archaeologists have unearthed the remains of an ancient walled city which predates the construction of Egypt’s pyramids. Known as the Sapelo Shell Ring Complex, this ancient city was constructed around 2300 B.C. and featured three neighborhoods each surrounded by circular walls twenty feet in height constructed from tons of seashells. Some of the earliest pottery in North America was also found buried in the remains of this lost city.

The site is quite an enigma because at the time of its construction the Native Americans living in the area were simple hunters and gatherers who had yet to invent agriculture. Many scholars believe agriculture is a prerequisite for civilization. Did these simple tribal people somehow make the leap from hunting-and-gathering to civilization in a single bound producing not only a walled city but also the new technology of pottery without the benefit of agriculture? Or did an already civilized people arrive on the coast of Georgia from elsewhere and, if so, where did they come from and why?

Just thirty years before the construction of the Sapelo Shell Rings researchers have noted that Bronze Age civilizations around the world show a pattern of collapse. According to the website LostWorlds.org:

“In the Middle East, Akkadian Sumer collapsed at this time and the Dead Sea water levels reached their lowest point. In China, the Hongsan culture collapsed. Sediments from Greenland and Iceland show a cold peak around 2200 BC. The population of Finland decreased by a third between 2400 and 2000 BC. In Turkey’s Anatolia region, including the site of ancient Troy, over 350 sites show evidence of being burnt and deserted. Entire regions reverted to a nomadic way of life after thousands of years of settled agricultural life. In fact, most sites throughout the Old World which collapsed around 2200 BC showed unambiguous signs of natural calamities and/or rapid abandonment.”

What happened around 2200 B.C. that could have caused such widespread devastation?

Meteor Storms & Cosmic Catastrophe?

Evidence is mounting that this devastation came from the sky. Astronomers have theorized that at this time Earth passed through a dense concentration of cosmic debris. Just picture the asteroid scene in Star Wars and you’ll get the idea. Yet researchers don’t think much of this debris actually impacted the ground. Instead they believe these meteors exploded in air bursts high above the ground, creating an ancient version of an atomic bomb blast.

These air bursts would have first incinerated everything within tens if not hundreds of miles. Next they would have created hurricane force winds which would have obliterated any above-ground structures as well as forests.

Astronomers believe this catastrophe was similar to the Tunguska Event which flattened 80 million trees over a 2,000 square mile area of Russian Siberia in 1908. Russian scientists believe this event was caused by the explosion of a large meteor tens of meters across at an altitude of 3-6 miles. A similar event is thought to have caused the climate downturn in 3200 BC which flash froze the so-called Ice Man in the Swiss Alps.

Who Built the Sapelo Shell Rings?

At the time of European contact, two Native American tribes were known for constructing round, walled villages: the Timucua and Yuchi. Archaeologists believe some time in the past the Timucua migrated to Georgia and Florida from South America since their language was similar to that spoken by Indians in Venezuela. Did they flee their homeland after it was devastated by a meteor swarm that destroyed huge swaths of jungle? The Rio Cuarto impact craters in Argentina are thought by some geologists to date to this time period which supports the idea that South America was affected by the same event that struck the Old World.

The Yuchi also have a legend that they arrived in Georgia after “the old moon broke” and devastated their island homeland. Could they have thought these meteors were pieces of the moon falling to Earth? Could impact tsunamis have devastated their island home in the Bahamas forcing them to flee to the mainland? Only further research will answer the questions.

(Source: sott.net)

AT least 10,000 ducks will have to be destroyed to contain an outbreak of bird flu at two Victorian farms.

The virus found in birds on the two properties is a low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) and not the deadlier form of the virus that spread through Asia, threatening humans and leading to a mass cull of poultry.

Dr Andrew Cameron, the state’s chief veterinary officer, says there is no risk to the community, but authorities had to act quickly to quarantine the two properties run by a company north of Melbourne to remove any chance the virus could spread.

“This is all about making sure that the virus doesn’t one day in the future evolve and mutate into a more serious form,” he said.

The source of the latest outbreak has not been confirmed, but officials believe the virus could have been introduced from wild waterfowl known to harbour influenza viruses.

The Department of Primary Industries will work with the farm owner to dispose of all the ducks and disinfect the farms, he said.

The discovery of the virus came from routine testing that is conducted regularly in the hopes of catching outbreaks before they get out of hand.

Bird flu, also known as avian influenza or AI, is a contagious disease that affects all kinds of poultry.

Dr Cameron said transmission of the virus from birds to humans is very uncommon and this recent outbreak was the first time this particular subtype of the virus had been found in Australian poultry.

“It is a rare event, and we want to absolutely make sure it stays that way,” he said.

Control of the disease is taking place under a nationally agreed framework which involves industry, the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments.

An incident management team has been assembled and is tracking all movements to and from the infected farms and surrounding areas.

The two farms are about 25km apart in an area north of Melbourne, but officials are keeping the exact location private.

Three previous Australian outbreaks of avian influenza in Victoria - the most recent in 1992 - have been successfully eradicated.

(Source: news.com.au)

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich.

A mystery illness which left a dozen high school students with Tourette’s-like symptoms has now been reported in another town 400km away.

Last Spring 12 female students from Le Roy High School in New York were struck down by the baffling condition which left them suffering from facial tics, convulsions and paralysis.

Now the number has risen to 15 and includes two girls from Saratoga County and a boy who also attends Le Roy High School.

The 12 girls from Le Roy were diagnosed with conversion disorder, or mass hysteria, which is a physiological condition often caused by a traumatic event.

Now environmental crusader Erin Brockovich has been called in to help investigate how the teenagers developed the mystery illness.

Brockovich, a lawyer and activist who gained fame when Julia Roberts played her in a biographical film, is not convinced of the diagnosis and believes groundwater contamination from a chemical spill more than 40 years ago may be causing the symptoms.

“They have not ruled everything out yet,” Brockovich told USA Today.

“The community asked us to help and this is what we do.”

The aunt of sick student Katie Miller contacted Brockovich for help because her family was not convinced of the mass hysteria diagnosis.

“We’re just trying to eliminate everything, and she wants to eliminate that it’s the environment,” said Katie’s father, Don Miller.

“It’s a possibility and she wants to prove it is or it isn’t something in the environment.”

Lori Brownell, one of the teenagers affected by the bizarre symptoms, posted a video on YouTube last December hoping someone may see it and be able to help diagnose her condition.

“We’re still trying to find answers for all of this… So far, we got nothing,” she tells the camera.

The New York Department of Health found “no evidence of environmental or infection as the cause of the girls’ illness” but said others were free to test the water themselves.

Many of the students are unable to return to school.

Another of the teenage girls affected by the symptoms, 17-year-old Thera Sanchez, told the

Today Show she had started the school year off like any other, but things took a dramatic turn after October 7.

“When these started, I was fine. I was perfectly fine. I felt good about everything, I was on honour roll. There was nothing going wrong. And then I just woke up and that’s when the stuttering started,” Thera said.

“I used to cheer every day. I used to go to two art classes every day. Now I’m not in school.”

(Source: news.ninemsn.com.au)

Goblins’ haunt couple

The love for quick riches has backfired for a Bulawayo man who yesterday confessed to buying five “goblins” which he said were now sexually molesting his wife.

Malibeni Mhlanga of Entumbane suburb confessed to NewsDay yesterday his “goblins” were traumatising his wife, Margaret Dube.
Mhlanga said he bought the five “goblins” in Insuza — 80km north of Bulawayo — but he now remained with two as the other three were killed in an exorcising ceremony.

The man claimed he acquired the goblins to amass wealth, but all that had remained a pipedream as the traditional healer who sold him the creatures had died.

His neighbours said their wives were also being sexually abused by the gnomes at night.

Scores of residents gathered at Mhlanga’s home yesterday demanding that he be removed from the area.
“I am seeking assistance to ensure the removal or destruction of these goblins because it now affects our daily lives such that we cannot even live in our own house,” he said.

“I had five goblins, but two have remained and I cannot live in this house.
“I urinate blood every time, and it has sex with my wife every time.”

His wife confirmed the “abuse”.

“It walks like a goat, and when it has sex with me, I often feel tired and spit blood. One day my bag was mysteriously increasing in size and we called a Gokwe prophet to cleanse our homestead. It (the goblin) looked like an owl, the prophet removed two snakes, a human-creature-like goblin which when ripped apart contained a picture of our son,” she said.

“After the event, a tenant who lived here was involved in an accident. We have sought assistance from the police and we had a meeting with the councillor yesterday. This thing is a mysterious. It is a power that is in use.”

Dube said the goblin follows her to an extent where her relatives do not want to live with her.

(Source: zimbabweghosts.blogspot.com)

Can’t touch this: Scientists are trying to build an asteroid shield to protect Earth from the giant space rocks. In three years they hope to have a plan to test devised

Scientists are trying to find a way to protect Earth from the giant rocks which travel around the Milky Way.

Run out of Berlin with funds from the EU, the NEOShield project, which will look for a way to protect earth from the space rocks, is expected to take three years to complete.

Some of the ideas being tossed around at the moment include repelling asteroids with projectiles or explosives or using gravity to change its course.

The project though is a little late as a chunk of rock 400 times the City of London is set to hurtle closer than a rock of its size has in a very long time.

The asteroid labelled ‘(433) Eros’ measures 19 by 8 by 8 miles and is set to pass by next week.

Despite its massive size, the cosmic rock shouldn’t be too cause too much of a threat as it is on a circular path far outside the moon’s orbit.

A smaller bus-sized asteroid is also set to pass extremely close to Earth today

The asteroid 2012 BX34, will pass within 36,750 miles of Earth at about 3:30 p.m. Friday, tweeted astronomers with NASA’s Asteroid Watch program.

Even though this is more than five times closer than the moon, at 11 meters wide, it won’t be any threat to earth.

‘It wouldn’t get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try,’ Asteroid Watch scientists tweeted yesterday.

Nevertheless, with NASA estimating that there are almost one thousand asteroids over one kilometre in length and 19,500 over 100-metres, scientists at the

With an investment of some €4 million by the European Commission and an extra €1.8 million coming from scientific institutions and partners, the German Aerospace Center aims to have a plan for a test mission drafted within three years.

After that, if they can find the extra cash, the mission may be launched by 2020.

The scientists will be looking at a host of ideas, many of which have already been proposed.

For one, there’s the ‘kinetic impactor’ plan where a massive projectile would deflect the asteroid.

Another is the ‘gravity tractor’ idea where a small probe would linger near the asteroid and use its gravitational traction to move it out of Earth’s way.

Or, like waging an all-out space war, some have suggested a full scale strike with nuclear missiles.

‘Of course, a lot of things have already been proposed,’ Alan Harris, the study’s leader, told Spiegel Online.

‘But, so far, most of them have come from a single institution, perhaps even from a single person. So it has been hard to pursue them.’

Investigating each idea ‘will take place on paper and in lab experiments, since we don’t have the money to do more than that,’ said Wolfram Lork, who works with a subsidiary on the project.

One other, coarser idea would be ‘blast deflection’ which would involve deterring the asteroid with directed explosive charges. Harris says this would be the ‘final, desperate approach.’

‘We would like to present plans for a feasible, affordable mission.

‘We want to show the world it can be done,’ Harris said, adding that the ultimate solution might be a combining a gravity tractor with a kinetic impactor.

By observing the huge craters around the world - such as the Barringer Crater in Arizona or the Nördlinger Ries near Munich - scientists know that asteroids have struck Earth in its history and that, without action, they could well strike again.

Hawaii’s legislature is weighing an unprecedented proposal to curb the privacy of Aloha State residents: requiring Internet providers to keep track of every Web site their customers visit.

Its House of Representatives has scheduled a hearing this morning on a new bill (PDF) requiring the creation of virtual dossiers on state residents. The measure, H.B. 2288, says “Internet destination history information” and “subscriber’s information” such as name and address must be saved for two years.

H.B. 2288, which was introduced Friday, says the dossiers must include a list of Internet Protocol addresses and domain names visited. Democratic Rep. John Mizuno of Oahu is the lead sponsor; Mizuno also introduced H.B. 2287, a computer crime bill, at the same time last week.

Last summer, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) managed to persuade a divided committee in the U.S. House of Representatives to approve his data retention proposal, which doesn’t go nearly as far as Hawaii’s. (Smith, currently Hollywood’s favorite Republican, has become better known as the author of the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA.)

Democrat Jill Tokuda, the Hawaii Senate’s majority whip, who introduced a companion bill, S.B. 2530, in the Senate, told CNET that her legislation was intended to address concerns raised by Rep. Kymberly Pine, the first Republican elected to her Oahu district since statehood and the House minority floor leader.

“I was asked to introduce the Senate companions on these Internet security related bills by Representative Kymberly Marcos Pine after her own personal experience in this area,” Tokuda said. “I would defer to her on the origins of these bills as she has done the research and outreach, and been the main champion of this effort.”

Pine, who did not immediately respond to queries, has been targeted by a disgruntled Web designer, Eric Ryan, who launched KymPineIsACrook.com and claims she owes him money, according to an article last summer in the Hawaii Reporter. Her e-mail account was also reportedly hacked around the same time. The article said Pine would advocate for “tougher cyber laws at the Hawaii State Capitol” as a result.

“We must do everything we can to protect the people of Hawaii from these attacks and give prosecutors the tools to ensure justice is served for victims,” Pine said at the time.

Whatever its sponsors’ motivations, the bill isn’t exactly being welcomed by Hawaiian Internet companies.

“This bill represents a radical violation of privacy and opens the door to rampant Fourth Amendment violations,” says Daniel Leuck, chief executive of Honolulu-based software design boutique Ikayzo, who submitted testimony opposing the bill. He adds: “Even forcing telephone companies to record everyone’s conversations, which is unthinkable, would be less of an intrusion.”

Mizuno’s proposal currently specifies no privacy protections, such as placing restrictions on what Internet providers can do with this information (like selling user profiles to advertisers) or requiring that police obtain a court order before perusing the virtual dossiers of Hawaiian citizens. Also absent are security requirements such as mandating the use of encryption.

Because the wording is so broad and applies to any company that “provides access to the Internet,” Mizuno’s legislation could sweep in far more than AT&T, Verizon, and Hawaii’s local Internet providers. It could also impose sweeping new requirements on coffee shops, bookstores, and hotels frequented by the over 6 million tourists who visit the islands each year.

“H.B. 2288 raises all of the traditional concerns associated with data retention, and then some,” Kate Dean, head of the U.S. Internet Service Provider Association in Washington, D.C., which counts Verizon and AT&T as members, told CNET. “And this may be the broadest mandate we’ve seen.”

Even the Justice Department has only lobbied the U.S. Congress to record Internet Protocol addresses assigned to individuals—users’ origin IP address, in other words. It hasn’t publicly demanded that companies record the destination IP addresses as well.

In Washington, D.C., the fight over data retention requirements has been simmering since the Justice Department pushed the topic in 2005, a development that was first reported by CNET. Proposals publicly surfaced in the U.S. Congress the following year, and President Bush’s attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said it’s an issue that “must be addressed.” So, eventually, did FBI director Robert Mueller.

(Source: CNET)

‘Scraping’ social network postings including Facebook and Twitter

The FBI’s Strategic Information and Operations Center (SOIC) posted a ‘Request for Information (RFI)’ online last week seeking companies to build a social network monitoring system for the FBI. The 12-page document (.pdf) spells out what the bureau wants from such a system and invites potential contractors to reply by February 10, 2012.

It says the application should provide information about possible domestic and global threats superimposed onto maps “using mash-up technology”.

It says the application should collect “open source” information and have the ability to:

• Provide an automated search and scrape capability of social networks including Facebook and Twitter.
• Allow users to create new keyword searches.
• Display different levels of threats as alerts on maps, possibly using color coding to distinguish priority. Google Maps 3D and Yahoo Maps are listed among the “preferred” mapping options.
• Plot a wide range of domestic and global terror data.
• Immediately translate foreign language tweets into English.

It notes that agents need to “locate bad actors…and analyze their movements, vulnerabilities, limitations, and possible adverse actions”. It also states that the bureau will use social media to create “pattern-of-life matrices” — presumably logs of targets’ daily routines — that will aid law enforcement in planning operations

(Source: commondreams.org)

Tasmanian police have confirmed they twice strip-searched a 12-year-old girl during a drug raid on Hobart’s eastern shore.

Police arrived at a house in Rokeby on Wednesday morning with a warrant to search for methylamphetamines.

Inspector Glenn Lathey says that during the raid the girl was twice searched by female officers in a bedroom in the presence of her mother.

Police say the law allows for children to be strip-searched.

Inspector Lathey confirmed the occupants of the house were known to police.

No charges will be laid against the girl, but several adults in the house will be charged.

(Source: abc.net.au)

A small asteroid the size of a city bus zoomed between Earth and the moon’s orbit late on Friday just days after its discovery, but it never posed a threat to our planet, NASA says.

The asteroid 2012 BX34 passed within 59,044 kilometers of Earth when it made its closest approach.

The space rock is about 11 metres wide and would have broken apart in Earth’s atmosphere long before it reached the ground, if it had reached the planet at all, NASA scientists said.

“Asteroid 2012 BX34 is small,” astronomers with NASA’s Asteroid Watch at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., said in a Twitter message. “It wouldn’t get through our atmosphere intact even if it dared to try.”

The space rock passed Earth at a distance that is only about 0.17 times that between the Earth and the moon. For comparison, the moon typically orbits Earth at a distance of about 386,000 km.

“Asteroids this small are hard to spot, & luckily they pose the least concern,” Asteroid Watch scientists explained. “Our goal is to find the bigger ones.”

In September, NASA announced that it has spotted about 90 percent of the largest asteroids (the size of a mountain or bigger) that can come near Earth. About 911 such giant space rocks have been confirmed.

Astronomers estimate there are about 981 big near-Earth objects that occasionally creep close to our planet.

Asteroid 2012 BX34 was the second space rock to fly relatively close by Earth this week, Asteroid Watch scientists said.

On January 23, another small asteroid — called 2012 BS1 — passed by the planet at a range of about 1.2 million km, which is about 3.1 times the Earth-moon distance.

“Asteroid 2012 BS1 is so small (about 7 meters) it would disintegrate in our atmosphere if it were to come close to Earth,” the Asteroid Watch team wrote.

Astronomers with NASA and other science teams routinely scan the skies in search of near-Earth asteroids that could pose a danger to the planet.

Experts estimate that asteroids about 140 m across and bigger can cause widespread devastation near their impact sites, though a larger space rock would be required to cause destruction on a global scale.

This week, scientists from around the world are also discussing how Earth should respond to the threat of an asteroid impact. The so-called NEOShield project is a European commission led by the German Aerospace Center and includes scientists from universities and industrial partners in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Spain, the United States and Russia.

(Source: Yahoo!)