March 2012

Ancient plant brought back to life

 

The Russian discovery of a cache of ancient seeds several years ago was nothing much to be excited about at the time.  These seeds, encased more than 120 feet below the earth’s surface, were found in an area known for fossil remains.  What is astounding, however, is that these particular seeds were preserved well enough for scientists to germinate them and grow them into healthy plants.  After more than 32,000 years, flora from an unknown period of history was restored to life.

Scientists are understandably excited about their accomplishment.  The previous record-holder for this type of procedure was a 2000-year-old date palm.  That beats out the previous record by several millennia.  Furthermore, the newly created plants managed to flower and produce their own seeds, creating a second generation and the assurance that this ancient plant will continue to exist in the modern world.

The Red Army Faction

Baader-Meinhof

 

The Baader-Meinhof Gang, or Red Army Faction, was a German terrorist group active from the early 70s to the late 90s, when it finally disbanded. In its thirty years or so of sporadic activity, the RAF robbed a number of banks, set off quite a few bombs and killed 34 people.

 

The RAF grew out of the student protest movement of the late 60s. German students, in particular, had many reasons to rebel against the status quo, including the fact that post-War Germany was largely run by the same generation that had allowed Hitler to murder millions of people, including quite a few former Nazis in high positions. The members of the RAF, though, were not idealistic student protesters so much as murderous zealots. They seem to have been driven, at least in part, by the sense that they were obligated to wage the war of resistance their parents ought to have waged against Nazism but never did. It was like a resistance-by-proxy, with the West German government standing in for the Nazi regime since it no longer existed for them to fight.

The Decided Ones

Of Jupiter The Thunderer

You've probably never heard of the Decided Ones of Jupiter the Thunderer, an Italian secret society and bandit army of the nineteenth century, but they were large enough to virtually seize southern Italy for themselves, marching under a skull and crossbones “Jolly Roger” flag bearing the inspirational slogan “Sadness, Death, Terror, and Mourning.” They were led by a sociopathic Catholic priest named Ciro Annunchiarico, who claimed to be the earthly avatar of the ancient Roman god Jupiter. Belief in his supernatural powers was so unquestioned that he was actually able to walk straight through an army encampment unmolested and take the general prisoner at knife-point.

Human Movement Throughout History Leaves Trail of Animal Species

Humans have had such an impact on other species that, like breadcrumbs in a fairytale, it's often to see where we've been by the species left behind.

Tracking the progress of human movement around the globe over the last several thousand years can be tricky; even more so when you’re attempting to track who was where and when. However, one helpful detail in doing this is looking at the local flora and fauna. No other species’ migrations have had such an impact on the movement of other species. Humanity has, over the thousands of years in which they’ve been traversing, plundering, conquering, and exploring, left a fascinating trail of animal and plant species across the globe and in every natural biome and human community.

Missing Links in Human Evolution – China May Hold a Key to Understanding

"Such an important discovery raises many new and interesting questions."

In a not-so-recent discovery, remains of ancient peoples were excavated from the caves that served as their former dwellings in southwestern China.  The fossils in question were first discovered in 1979 and 1989, though had been placed in storage until just recently.  Professor Ji Xueping discovered the remains of the 1979 group sitting in a basement and, upon taking a further look, noticed that the traits of these fossils were truly unique in the chain of human evolution.

Humanity's Dominance Over Neanderthals As Simple As "Right Time, Right Place"

It may have had more to do with opportunism and luck than anything like "superior intellect".

As a human it would pain to think that our survival as a species, which we believe was due to innovation and superior intelligence, may have been as simple as being in the right place at the right time. However, a recent theory suggests that Homo Sapiens may have been able to beat out their competitors, like Neanderthals, simply because they found the right place to wait out the Ice Age. Two British scientists have hypothesized that the various numbers of archaic humans that came out of that period, and the fact that Homo Sapiens Sapiens ultimately triumphed, is attributable to climate patterns consistent with the Ice Age.

Dentist and Robots Hold Key to Great Pyramid of Giza

In another case of using technology to discover the past, a Hong Kong dentist and inventor by the name of Ng Tze-chuen has been working alongside Egypt’s former antiquities manager, Zahi Hawass in a joint effort to find out what may be behind two sealed doors in the Great Pyramid of Giza. 

These two doors were first found in 1872 though have remained shut up until now.  The main obstacle to exploration was the fact that the passages to the doors were too narrow for any human being to navigate.  Archaeologists speculate that there are unexplored chambers behind the doors and are hopeful that one of them will be the tomb of the Pharaoh Cheops.

The Jacquerie

Revolt and Atrocity

The “Jacquerie” was a peasant rebellion in northern France during the Hundred Years War. Unlike the huge English peasant rebellion of John Ball, the Jacquerie was characterized by scenes of almost unbelievable atrocity. The rebels supposedly:

 

“killed a knight, put him on a spit, and roasted him with his wife and children looking on. After ten or twelve of them raped the lady, they wished to force feed them the roasted flesh of their father and husband and made them then die by a miserable death.”

Returning Native American Cultural Relics

Over time, many items of Native American cultural significance have been collected and placed into museums.  Whether gathered for scientific study, bought via the black market or taken as artifacts from archaeological dig sites, these things have steadily filled museums and warehouses over the years.  Many of these items were acquired during a time period when Native Americans had little right to their ancestral homelands and were thus powerless to stop archaeologists from exhuming the remains of their past.  Now archaeologists are trying to correct their past mistakes and get these artifacts back to the original tribes that they belonged to, though it is proving to be no easy task.

Werwolfs

Nazi Guerrillas

 

My grandfather served on the Western Front during World War II, but he actually got there too late for the fighting. He was one of the final wave of soldiers that went over to Europe, and his military service was limited to the post-war occupation of Germany. I asked him once if he ever saw combat, and he said not really, but that his unit was pinned down by sniper fire once.

Holding the Past Hostage

A long time ago, the tradition of stealing other people’s heritage was a strongly ingrained one, especially among imperial powers.  During the 1800s, archaeological artifacts were nothing more than the spoils of war or curiosities to be bought and sold.  Historians who recognized the value of these artifacts would usually take them back to their home countries where they would then be put on display at a museum or placed in a private collection.  This hundreds-of-years-old looting practice is causing some very modern problems, however, as countries demand to have their cultural heritage restored to them.

The Good Old Days

And The Uses Of History

This painting by Thomas Kincade exemplifies a widespread and common nostalgia for the “good old days” when everything was warm and safe and nice and cozy, bathed in soft and soothing light. This nostalgic image is completely false. It's not that the past was inferior to the present in every way. Like many if not most history buffs, I have my own favorite little corners or aspects of the past that I wish could be revived in the modern world. But an across-the-board nostalgia for the ways things used to be is by definition a nostalgia for racial segregation, for a time when women weren't even allowed to vote, for colonial conquest and maybe even worse things like slavery and genocide.