Sarah Palin and the Witchdoctor

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26798219#26798219

This video is a scary notion. Sarah Palin praising a preacher is a self confirmed witch-hunter! And she credits this man as the reason she became Governor. I'm sorry, but this woman scares the crap out of me. McCain, I can handle, Palin, uh-uh.

Viking Age Triggered by Shortage of Wives?

Viking Age Triggered by Shortage of Wives?
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


Sept. 17, 2008 -- During the Viking Age from the late eighth to the mid-eleventh centuries, Scandinavians tore across Europe attacking, robbing and terrorizing locals. According to a new study, the young warriors were driven to seek their fortunes to better their chances of finding wives.

The odd twist to the story, said researcher James Barrett, is that it was the selective killing of female newborns that led to a shortage of Scandinavian women in the first place, resulting later in intense competition over eligible women.

"Selective female infanticide was recorded as part of pagan Scandinavian practice in later medieval sources, such as the Icelandic sagas," Barrett, who is deputy director of Cambridge University's McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, told Discovery News.

Although it's believed many cultures throughout world history have practiced female infanticide, said Barrett, he admits that "it is difficult to identify in the archaeological record," so the claim "must remain a hypothesis."

To strengthen the argument, however, Barrett has reviewed and dismissed several other proposed causes for the Viking Age.

Improved seafaring technologies are often cited as the trigger, but he points out that an earlier migration from Scandinavia to Britain took place in the fifth and sixth centuries.

"Thus the development of the Viking ship cannot have been a cause of movements of this kind," he said. "Ships capable of carrying warriors over long distances are a necessary pre-requisite for the Viking Age, but clearly they did not cause it."

What's more, he points out, the sailing time from Norway to Ireland is quite short -- perhaps a week using vessels of the time -- so the Vikings were probably capable of raiding Ireland well before the official start of their reign of terror.

The study is published in the current issue of Antiquity.

Barrett also dismisses other proposed causes of the Viking Age, such as climate change, overpopulation in Scandinavia, economic woes and more.

An intriguing archaeological clue is that much of the bounty plundered from Britain -- particularly from monasteries -- wound up later in the graves of Viking wives. The items included precious metals, fine cloth, jewelry and other handicrafts.

Barrett's analysis of Nordic historical records found that Scandinavian men often served as warriors, frequently forming "military brotherhoods," until they were able to marry and establish their own households, which were key to prestige and power.

According to Barrett, honor and religious fatalism -- the idea that the time and manner of death is predestined -- also fueled the Vikings, helping explain why men were willing to risk death in violent battles and risky seafaring. The Viking religion held that "the cosmos began in the frozen emptiness...and will end in fire with the last battle," said Barrett.

Despite the infanticide, he still believes the Vikings "highly valued" women. Aside from lavishing bridal prospects with plundered goods, they held solemn burials at sea for women. In fact, one of the most important known Viking Age burials, involved numerous goods and two female skeletons encased in a ship called the Oseberg.

Soren Sindbaek, assistant professor of medieval and Renaissance archaeology at Denmark's University of Aarhus, told Discovery News that the new paper "is very right in pointing out the inadequacy" of former explanations for the Viking Age.

"We need indeed to seek for an individual, social motivation behind the fact that a large number of young men chose to set out on extremely risky voyages in hopes of acquiring wealth and esteem in foreign lands," Sindbaek said.

"Barrett points to the wish of disadvantaged young men to acquire resources necessary to set up a family as crucial," he added. "This is the 'marriage imperative,' which I think Barrett succeeds in substantiating within the limitations of the evidence."

Barrett suggested additional studies on the Vikings since would help "to understand how small-scale societies -- and issues of a very human scale -- can have a large impact on world history, positive and/or negative."

Copyright © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC. The number-one nonfiction media company.

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/09/17/viking-women.html

Neanderthals Conquered Mammoths, Why Not Us?

Neanderthals Conquered Mammoths, Why Not Us?
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


Sept. 9, 2008 -- They may have been stronger, but Neanderthals looked, ate and may have even thought much like modern humans do, suggest several new studies that could help explain new evidence that the early residents of prehistoric Europe and Asia engaged in head-to-head combat with woolly mammoths.

Together, the findings call into question how such a sophisticated group apparently disappeared off the face of the Earth around 30,000 years ago.

The new evidence displays the strengths and weaknesses of Neanderthals, suggesting they were skilled hunters but not as brainy and efficient as modern humans, who eventually took over Neanderthal territories.

Neanderthal Vs. Woolly Mammoth

Most notably among the new studies is what researchers say is the first ever direct evidence that a woolly mammoth was brought down by Neanderthal weapons.

Margherita Mussi and Paola Villa made the connection after studying a 60,000 to 40,000-year-old mammoth skeleton unearthed near Neanderthal stone tool artifacts at a site called Asolo in northeastern Italy. The discoveries are described in this month's Journal of Archaeological Science.

Villa, a curator of paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, told Discovery News that other evidence suggests Neanderthals hunted the giant mammals, but not as directly. At the English Channel Islands, for example, 18 woolly mammoths and five woolly rhinoceroses dating to 150,000 years ago "were driven off a cliff and died by falling into a ravine about 30 meters (over 98 feet) deep. They were then butchered."

Villa, however, pointed out that "there were no stone points or other possible weapons" found at the British site.

"At Asolo, instead there was a stone point that was very probably mounted on a wooden spear and used to kill the animal," she added.

Several arrowheads were excavated at the Italian site, but the one of greatest interest is fractured at the tip, indicating that it "impacted bone or the thick skin of the mammoth."

Other studies on stone points suggest that if such a weapon were rammed into a large beast, it would be likely to fracture the same way.

What's For Dinner?

There is no question that Neanderthals craved meat and ate a lot of it.

A study in this month's issue of the journal Antiquity by German anthropologists Michael Richard and Ralf Schmitz found that Neanderthals went for red meat, not of the woolly mammoth variety, but from red deer, roe deer, and reindeer.

The scientists came to that conclusion after grinding up bone samples taken from the remains of Neanderthals found in Germany and then analyzing the isotopes within. These forms of chemical elements -- in this case, carbon and nitrogen -- reveal if the individual being tested lived on meat, fish or plants, since each food group has its own carbon and nitrogen signature.

Richard and Schmitz conclude that the Neanderthals subsisted primarily on meat from deer, which they probably stalked in organized groups.

The researchers say their findings "reinforce the idea that Neanderthals were sophisticated hunters with an advanced ability to organize and communicate."

Villa agrees.

"Neanderthals are no longer considered inferior hunters," she said. "Neanderthals were capable of hunting a wide range of prey, from dangerous animals such as brown bears, mammoths and rhinos, to large, medium and small-size ungulates such as bison, aurochs, horse, red deer, reindeer, roe deer and wild goats."

Enter Homo Sapiens

Fossils suggest that Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted in Western Europe for at least 10,000 years. While there is a smattering of evidence that the two species interbred, most anthropologists believe the commingling was infrequent or not enough to substantially affect the Homo sapiens gene pool.

New evidence supports that notion, while also revealing that the world's first anatomically modern humans retained a few Neanderthal-like characteristics.

Several papers in the current Journal of Human Evolution describe the world's first known people, which shared bone, hand and ankle features with Neanderthals and possibly also Homo erectus.

John Fleagle, professor of anatomical sciences at Stony Brook University, who worked on the early human research, told Discovery News that the shared characteristics "are just primitive features retained from a common ancestor."

Neanderthal Brain Power

It's known that Neanderthals had more robust skeletons than modern humans, with particularly strong arms and hands, but were the two groups evenly matched in brainpower?

A new study in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides some intriguing clues.

Marcia Ponce de Leon of the University of Zurich's Anthropological Institute and Museum and her colleagues virtually reconstructed brain size and growth of three Neanderthal infant skeletons found in Syria and Russia.

"Neanderthal brain size at birth was similar to that in recent Homo sapiens and most likely subject to similar obstetric constraints," Ponce de Leon and her team concluded, although they added that "Neanderthal brain growth rates during early infancy were higher" than those experienced by modern humans.

It appears, therefore, that while Neanderthal brains grew at about the same rate as ours, they had a small size advantage.

Trade-Offs in Evolution

But bigger is not always better in terms of brain function. Modern humans evolved smaller, but more efficient, brains.

Ponce de Leon and her colleagues suggest, "It could be argued that growing smaller -- but similarly efficient -- brains required less energy investment and might ultimately have led to higher net reproduction rates."

On the down side for people, however, brainpower efficiency doesn't come without a cost.

"Our new research suggests that schizophrenia is a byproduct of the increased metabolic demands brought about during human brain evolution," explained Philipp Khaitovich of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the Shanghai branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Cards Evenly Stacked

Weighing the pros and cons of each species, Neanderthals and modern humans may have been evenly matched when they shared European land, with more and more scientists puzzling over how such an advanced, human-like being became extinct.

University of Exeter archaeologist Metin Eren hopes the latest findings will not only change the image of Neanderthals, but also the direction that future research on these prehistoric hominids will take.

"It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived," Eren said.

"When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of stupid or less advanced and more in terms of different," he added.


Copyright © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC. The number-one nonfiction media company.

"House" star Hugh Laurie joins TV's richest list

"House" star Hugh Laurie joins TV's richest list

By Nellie Andreeva
2 hours, 2 minutes ago
11 September 2008

He is the star of the biggest drama on television. Now Hugh Laurie is poised to become one of the highest-paid actors on TV with a new deal to continue on Fox's "House."

The British actor's salary is expected to rise to about $400,000 an episode, or more than $9 million a year, under a pact with producer Universal Media Studios.

Laurie, 49, who had humble beginnings on "House" with a starting salary in the mid-five figures in 2004, got his first major salary bump in summer 2006 when his per-episode fee was upped to $250,000-$300,000 an episode.

The list of highest-paid actors on drama series is now topped by departing "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" leading man William Petersen ($600,000 per episode) and "24's" Kiefer Sutherland (close to $500,000), who both serve as executive producers on their series.

Just as Sutherland's Jack Bauer is synonymous with "24," curmudgeonly medical genius Dr. Gregory House is at the heart of "House." The role has earned Laurie two Golden Globes and three Emmy nominations.

He also would get some sort of producing credit on the medical drama, which returns for a fifth season Tuesday. The deal also adds another year to Laurie's contract on the series, assuring he will stay on at least through the 2011-12 season.

This past season, the medical drama averaged 16.7 million viewers, the second-highest-rated scripted series behind ABC's "Desperate Housewives."

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter

Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

Myth of Dwarf Dinos in Dracula Country Confirmed

Myth of Dwarf Dinos in Dracula Country Confirmed
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


June 13, 2008 -- In 1900, the sister of an eccentric Austro-Hungarian aristocrat named Baron von Nopsca found a tiny bone on the baron's family estate in Transylvania, a historical region in present-day Romania. The baron, who was a dinosaur buff, identified the bone as belonging to a dwarf dino that likely once lived on an island in the region.

The motorcycle-riding baron's outrageous theories were ridiculed and largely dismissed, but now new evidence suggests his proposed island of dwarf dinosaurs did indeed exist in the land of the mythical, blood-drinking Count Dracula.

"Bram Stoker's [Dracula] tale is without a very sustainable historical background, but that is not the case here," lead researcher Vlad Codrea told Discovery News.

Dwarfed Bones Support the Claims

Codrea, a professor of biology and geology at University Babes-Bolyai in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, and colleague Pascal Godefroit recently found several bones belonging to Zalmoxes shqiperorum, an herbivorous dinosaur with forelimbs that were much shorter than its hindlimbs.

The findings have been accepted for publication in the journal Comptes Rendus Palevol.

"Obviously it was a dwarf dinosaur," said Codrea, who compared the dinosaur to its Rhabdodon relatives from southern France and northern Spain. Rhabdodon, meaning "fluted tooth," measured just over 14 feet long, which, in itself, is a relatively small size for a dinosaur. Zalmoxes, on the other hand, was only 7 to 10 feet long.

The dwarf dinosaur has been classified as belonging to the iguanodont dinosaur group. These Mid Jurassic to Late Cretaceous animals included duck-billed dinos. Some members of the group could weigh up to eight tons and reach 50 feet in length.

Codrea and Godefroit unearthed the newly found bones in a red clay deposit at the Jibou Formation in Somes Odorhei, Romania.

More Mini Dinosaurs

The small Romanian dinosaur was apparently not a loner.

"Zalmoxes had in Transylvania select dinosaur company," Codrea said. "All were dwarves."

He explained that after the initial discovery on Nopsca's estate, the baron set off on his motorcycle to excavate various parts of his homeland. Over the years he found bones belonging to multiple dwarfed species.

These included a sauropod named Magyarosaurus dacus, which looked like a tiny version of a brontosaurus or diplodocus, and the ankylosaur Strutiosaurus transilvanicus, whose body was covered by many tiny bones that formed a protective shield.

A duck-billed dinosaur called Telmatosaurus transylvanicus was also excavated in the area, along with several carnivorous dinos, such as Velociraptorinae indet, Euronychodon and Paronychodon.

The Island Effect

Although many scientists scoffed at the notion of tiny dinosaurs inhabiting Transylvania, imminent paleontologist David Weishampel, fresh out of graduate school, became intrigued by the baron's finds, which he investigated first-hand in Romania.

Weishampel, who now works in the Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at Johns Hopkins University, came to the conclusion that Nopsca was right -- very small dinosaurs really did live in Romania during the Late Cretaceous (around 70 to 65 million years ago).

He also agreed with the baron's theory that life in isolation on an island, which Weishampel has named Hateg Island, led to the dino dwarfism.

"Hateg was an eastern European island that existed throughout most of the Cretaceous," Weishampel told Discovery News. "It was colonized by the dinosaurs, turtles, crocodiles and various other animals that lived in subtropical to temperate shallow marine environments."

The new research suggests Hateg Island might have connected to mainland Transylvania at one point on the northeastern side, but scientists are still piecing together the region's geological history.

What is clear, however, is that the dinosaurs must have evolved away from other parts of Europe, since such isolated groups tend to be smaller or larger than normal, due to condensed ecosystems that result in size extremes.

On the Other End of the Scale

A few years ago, two of Codrea's colleagues from Bucharest, along with French paleontologist Eric Buffetaud, described "a new giant pterosaur" from Cretaceous Transylvania that was "remarkable for its very large size and for the robustness of its large skull."

The new pterosaur turned out to have a wingspan of 40 feet or more. Its scientific name, Hatzegopteryx thambema, appropriately means "Hateg Island Monster."

The flying reptile's head alone was nearly 10 feet long. Its skull was so long that Buffetaud's team wondered how the creature could have ever taken flight, but the researchers discovered that thin bones enclosing small air pockets gave the monster "strength and lightness."

Recreations of Hateg Island now therefore take on quite a psychedelic dream-like picture, with dwarf Transylvania dinosaurs living in relative tropical splendor, while flying monstrous reptiles swoop overhead.

Codrea explained that the pterosaur originally came as "an intruder, a visitor arrived from far away areas," and could fly over large distances that prevented it from locking into the island miniaturizing pattern of evolution.

The Baron's Tragic Ending

Baron von Nopsca did not live to see his theories validated.

He embarked on a motorcycle tour of Italy and Europe with his lover and secretary, Bayazid Doda, an Albanian Muslim, seated in his sidecar. The two men ran out of money and cut their journey short in Vienna where, in a rage, the baron drugged Doda's tea to render him unconscious. He then shot Doda before turning the gun on himself in 1933 when he was 56 years old.

Despite the baron's inner demons, other researchers now mostly support his theories, which included not only his work on dinosaurs, but also plate tectonics. Weishampel believes his work was so important that he's taken a year off to study it further and to write a related book.

Codrea and his colleague are also still exploring Transylvania's dinosaurs. They plan to publish information on even more finds there soon.

"I'm sure that Nopsca would be pleased about our discoveries, if he were alive," Codrea said. "He was an enthusiastic paleontologist and he believed in his research."

He added, "Sometimes, when I'm in the field, I have the strange sensation that he is somewhere near…"



Copyright © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC. The number-one nonfiction media company.

Odysseus' Bloody Homecoming Dated to 1178 B.C.

Odysseus' Bloody Homecoming Dated to 1178 B.C.
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press


June 24, 2008 -- Using clues from star and sun positions mentioned by the ancient Greek poet Homer, scholars think they have determined the date when King Odysseus returned from the Trojan War and slaughtered a group of suitors who had been pressing his wife to marry one of them.

It was on April 16, 1178 B.C. that the great warrior struck with arrows, swords and spears, killing those who sought to replace him, a pair of researchers say in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

Experts have long debated whether the books of Homer reflect the actual history of the Trojan War and its aftermath.

Marcelo O. Magnasco of Rockefeller University in New York and Constantino Baikouzis of the Astronomical Observatory in La Plata, Argentina, acknowledge they had to make some assumptions to determine the date Odysseus returned to his kingdom of Ithaca.

But interpreting clues in Homer's "Odyssey" as references to the positions of stars and a total eclipse of the sun allowed them to determine when a particular set of conditions would have occurred.

"What we'd like to achieve is to get the reader to pick up the 'Odyssey' and read it again, and ponder," said Magnasco. "And to realize that our understanding of these texts is quite imperfect, and even when entire libraries have been written about Homeric studies, there is still room for further investigation."

Their study potentially adds support to the accuracy of Homer's writing.

"Under the assumption that our work turns out to be correct, it adds to the evidence that he knew what he was talking about," Magnasco said. "It still does not prove the historicity of the return of Odysseus," he said. "It only proves that Homer knew about certain astronomical phenomena that happened much before his time."

Homer reports that on the day of the slaughter the sun is blotted from the sky, possibly a reference to an eclipse. In addition, he mentions more than once that it is the time of a new moon, which is necessary for a total eclipse, the researchers say.

Other clues include:

* Six days before the slaughter, Venus is visible and high in the sky.
* Twenty-nine days before, two constellations -- the Pleiades and Bootes -- are simultaneously visible at sunset.
* And 33 days before, Mercury is high at dawn and near the western end of its trajectory. This is the researchers' interpretation, anyway. Homer wrote that Hermes, the Greek name for Mercury, traveled far west to deliver a message.

"Of course we believe it's amply justified, otherwise we would not commit it to print. However we do recognize there's less ammunition to defend this interpretation than the others," Magnasco said.

"Even though the other astronomical references are much clearer, our interpretation of them as allusions to astronomical phenomena is an assumption," he added in an interview via e-mail.

For example, Magnasco said, Homer writes that as Odysseus spread his sails out of Ogygia, "sleep did not weigh on his eyelids as he watched the Pleiades, and late-setting Bootes, and the Bear."

"We assume he means that as Odysseus set sail shortly after sunset, at nautical twilight the Pleiades and Bootes were simultaneously visible, and that Bootes would be the later-setting of the two," Magnasco explained. "It is a good assumption because every member of his audience would know what was being discussed, as the Pleiades and Bootes were important to them to know the passage of the seasons and would be very familiar with which times of the year they were visible. Remember the only calendar they had was the sky."

Since the occurrence of an eclipse and the various star positions repeat over different periods of time, Magnasco and Baikouzis set out to calculate when they would all occur in the order mentioned in the "Odyssey."

And their result has Odysseus exacting his revenge on April 16, 1178 B.C.



Copyright © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC. The number-one nonfiction media company.

Odd Story: Cows Use Inner Compass to Point North-South

Cows Use Inner Compass to Point North-South
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press


Aug. 26, 2008 -- Talk about animal magnetism, cows seem to have a built-in compass. No bull: Somehow, cattle seem to know how to find north and south, say researchers who studied satellite photos of thousands of cows around the world.

Most cattle that were grazing or resting tended to align their bodies in a north-south direction, a team of German and Czech researchers reports in Tuesday's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And the finding held true regardless of what continent the cattle were on, according to the study led by Hynek Burda and Sabine Begall of the faculty of biology at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany.

"The magnetic field of the Earth has to be considered as a factor," the scientists said.

This challenges scientists to find out why and how these animals align to the magnetic field, Begall said in an interview via e-mail.

"Of course, the question arises whether humans show also such a spontaneous behavior," she said, adding, what "consequences does it have for their health."

The study sent Tina Hinchley, who with her husband Duane operates a dairy farm in Cambridge, Wis., to take a new look at an aerial photo taken of their farm a few years ago.

"The cows that were in the pasture were all over the place ... about two-thirds were north-south," Hinchley said.

Two-thirds is close to what the researchers found in their look at 8,510 cattle in 308 pastures. In the study, 60 percent to 70 percent of cattle were oriented north-south, which Begall termed a "highly significant deviation from random distribution."

Hinchley stressed that one factor that must be considered is cow comfort.

"They don't like to get hot. Their body temperature is 102, and they are wearing black leather jackets, literally! If turning north-south would keep them cooler, they would stand that way."

The research team noted that in very windy conditions cattle tend to face the wind, and have been known to seek out the sun on cold days. But they said they were able to discount weather effects in the study by analyzing clues such as the position of the sun based on shadows.

"This is a surprising discovery," said Kenneth J. Lohmann of the biology department at the University of North Carolina. "Nothing like this has been observed before in cattle or in any large animal."

However Lohmann, who was not part of the research team, cautioned that "the study is based entirely on correlations. To demonstrate conclusively that cattle have a magnetic sense, some kind of experimental manipulation will eventually be needed."

Joseph L. Kirschvink of the California Institute of Technology said he wondered if fences around the pastures could affect cattle orientation.

Passive alignment of animals to magnetic fields has been reported in honeybees and termites, he noted. It requires some type of special sensory organ to detect the magnetic field.

"If they have evidence suggesting that mammals are using magnetic fields to orient their movements, this is very cool," said Mark A. Willis, an associate professor of biomedical sciences at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Willis, who was not part of the research team, added, "We have only in the last few years begun to understand the mechanisms underlying magnetic field orientation in birds and other smaller animals."

Indeed, it's small animals that led to this study, Begall explained. They were researching the magnetic field effect on African mole-rats.

"At one point last year the question came up whether large animals could also sense the Earth's magnetic field or not. But of course, it is difficult, or maybe impossible, to do these studies in the lab," she said. "So, the idea arose to look for other large mammals like cattle, and Hynek Burda was fascinated when he recognized that cattle could be found on Google Earth satellite images."

With satellite images they could tell the north-south orientation of the animals, but not whether an individual cow was facing north or south. You have to get closer to tell which end is which.

Now the researchers are moving on to study sheep, goats, horses, wild boar and some further deer species, Begall added.

The current study said red and roe deer also were found to orient in a north-south direction when grazing and resting, but unlike the worldwide cattle study, the deer portion was limited to the Czech Republic.



Copyright © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC. The number-one nonfiction media company.

Ireland's Sheela-Na-Gigs

Found a site about Sheela-Na-Gigs in Ireland:

http://www.irelands-sheelanagigs.org/



~~~

Health Advice from Dr. Weil: Eight Ways to Prevent Gallstones

Eight Ways to Prevent Gallstones

Every year, more than one million Americans discover that they have gallstones – hardened, pebble-like deposits in the gallbladder that can range in size from a grain of sand to a golf ball. Roughly 50 percent of people diagnosed with gallstones end up in surgery for the removal of the gallbladder.

So how can you prevent gallstones? Since most stones are composed of cholesterol, diet plays a role in their formation. If you are at risk of developing gallstones (risk factors include a family history of gallstones, being overweight, recent rapid weight loss and, among women, pregnancy, using birth control pills, or hormone replacement therapy after menopause), you may be able to prevent them or prevent symptoms from worsening with these measures:

1. If you need to lose weight, do so slowly (crash dieting can lead to gallstone formation).

2. Drink plenty of water throughout the day to keep hydrated – this can help keep the bile in your gallbladder fluid.

3. Make sure you get 1,000 to 1,200 mg of calcium from all sources daily (an intake level that's associated with a lower incidence of gallstones). Women should consider taking 500-700 mg of calcium in supplement form. This can help bind bile acids and decrease the risk of stone formation. However, men should limit calcium consumption to 500 to 600 mg from all sources.

4. Take 300 mg of curcumin (an active component of the yellow spice turmeric) three times a day to increase the solubility of your bile. Choose a product standardized for curcuminoid content.

5. Take 200 mg of supplemental vitamin C daily (in one study women with higher blood levels of vitamin C were half as likely to develop gallstones as those with lower levels).

6. Keep your fat intake to about 25 percent of daily calories. A high-fat diet can trigger the gallbladder to release bile and set off an attack if you already have gallstones. But be wary of very low-fat diets, which can promote the formation of stones by failing to stimulate normal gallbladder contraction and flow of bile.

7. Limit your intake of sugar, which may promote gallstone formation.

8. Increase your fiber intake, and substitute whole soy protein for animal protein in your diet.


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Fetus Mummies Were Likely King Tut's

Fetus Mummies Were Likely King Tut's
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News


Aug. 15, 2008 -- Ongoing analysis on the mummified remains of two female fetuses buried in the tomb of Tutankhamun will most likely show that at least one of the stillborn children is the offspring of the teenage pharaoh, a scientist who carried serological analysis on the mummified remains told Discovery News.

"I studied one of the mummies, the larger one, back in 1979 [and] determined the blood group data from this baby mummy and compared it with my 1969 blood grouping of Tutankhamun.

"The results confirmed that this larger fetus could indeed be the daughter of Tutankhamen," said Robert Connolly, senior lecturer in physical anthropology from the University of Liverpool's Department of Human Anatomy and Cell Biology.

The fetuses have been stored at the Cairo University's Faculty of Medicine since archaeologist Howard Carter first discovered them in Tutankhamun's tomb on the west bank of Luxor, Egypt in 1922.

Egyptologists have long debated whether these mummies were the stillborn children of King Tut and his wife Ankhesenamun or if they were placed in the tomb with the symbolic purpose of allowing the boy king to live as newborns in the afterlife.

Never publicly displayed, the two fetuses will soon undergo CT scans and DNA testing to determine possible diseases and their relation to the famous pharaoh, and possibly "identify the fetuses' mother," Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a statement.

"This is a very important project, as these fetuses have never been fully studied," Swiss anatomist and paleopathologist Frank Rühli told Discovery News.

The smaller fetus, about five months in gestational age, has only been examined by Carter in 1925. The mummy is less than 30 centimeters (11.8 inches) in height and is well preserved, according to Rühli.

Rühli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, added that the mummy showed no signs of brain removal or abdominal incision, the umbilical cord was still there, and a funerary mask was still in place.

The older, larger fetus is estimated to be between seven and nine months in gestational age. It is less well preserved than the other and measures 38.5 centimeters (15.16 inches).

"The mummy was subjected to X-rays in 1978 and a number of skeletal malformations were observed," Rühli said

At that time, Connolly and British scientist Ronald Harrison, along with colleagues from Cairo University, suggested that the older stillborn fetus displayed what could have been the earliest evidence of Sprengel's deformity, a relatively rare and congenital skeletal disorder where a scapula sits too high on one side.

Moreover, the female mummy was diagnosed with a vertebral dislocation, spina bifida and scoliosis. Now Connolly is less certain about those conclusions.

"I did publish a paper with Harrison and others in which we suggested Sprengel's disease. However, recently I have concluded that the elevated clavicle was simply a result of manipulation of the baby during mummification," Connolly said.

He is also cautions about the diagnosis of spina bifida, and suggests a more accurate examination of the body could yield other explanations.

So who were these stillborn girls? Why were they buried with King Tut? Was the boy king their dad? And what was their cause of death?

Hawass believes that DNA tests might help solve this riddle and even more mysteries around King Tut. The fetuses might help identify "the lineage and the family of King Tutankhamun, particularly his parents," he said.

Tutankhamun's lineage has piqued the curiosity of Egyptologists ever since his mummy and treasure-packed tomb were discovered.

It is unclear if King Tut was the son of Kiya and the "heretic" pharaoh Akhenaton, or of Akhenaton's other wife, the famously-beautiful queen Nefertiti.

Only a few facts about King Tut's life are known. King Tut-ankh-Amun, meaning "the living image of Amun," ascended the throne in 1333 B.C., at the age of nine, and reigned until his death at about 19. He was a pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty, probably the greatest of the Egyptian royal families.

He married 13-year-old Ankhesenpaaten, Nefertiti's daughter, on his accession to the throne.

Although many diseases have been attributed to the teenage king, the 2005 CT scan suggests he was a mostly healthy young man with no signs of childhood malnutrition.

"I strongly believe he was fertile," Rühli, a member of the small Egyptian-led research team that examined King Tut's CT scan images in 2005, said.

Indeed, many scholars believe that the fetuses are the stillborn children of King Tut and Ankhesenpaaten, who had changed her name to Ankhesenamun.

If so, DNA analysis on the fetuses could help determine whether Ankhesenamun was King Tut's half-sister or full sister.

"If the fetus DNA matches King Tut's DNA and Ankhesenamun's DNA, then they shared the same mother," Hawass said.

In their 1979 research, Harrison and Connolly also analyzed blood types to try and determine how the fetuses fit into the relationship of King Tut and other Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty.

According to the 30-year-old analysis, the stillborn children may have been the baby daughters either of King Tut and Ankhesenamun, or Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his wife (and most likely his daughter) Sitamun, or Pharoahs Tutankhamun or Smenkhkare (a predecessor of King Tut) and Sitamun.

"I am pretty sure the fetuses were Ankhesenamen's," Egyptologist and paleopathologist Bob Brier, one of the world's foremost experts on mummies, told Discovery News.

Connolly agrees: "Since these two fetuses were found in the tomb of Tutankhamen, there is no reason to think that they were other than his offspring, a matter supported by my 1979 blood group studies."

The two fetuses will be studied at a new ancient DNA lab opening at Cairo University to supplement research at a similar lab created at the Egyptian Museum, with funding from the Discovery Channel.

The DNA tests and CT scans should be finished by December.

'Iceman' Oetzi's Clothes Suggest Shepherd Life

A Shepherd's Shoes


'Iceman' Oetzi's Clothes Suggest Shepherd Life
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News


Aug. 22, 2008 -- Oetzi the Iceman walked his last steps on Earth wearing moccasins made from cattle leather, according to German researchers who have disclosed the 5,300-year-old dress code of the world's oldest intact human mummy.

The research, based on a hi-tech method of analyzing proteins, established that the famous Neolithic man did not dress like a hunter, but like a herdsman -- in clothes made from sheep and cattle hair.

Using MALDITOF (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization) mass spectrometry, Klaus Hollemeyer of Saarland University in Germany and colleagues examined "four animal-hair-bearing samples of the accoutrement of the mummy."

"Two samples from his coat, and a sample from his leggings, were assigned to sheep. The upper leather of his moccasins, was made from cattle," the researchers wrote in the September issue of journal Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry.

Exclusively based on the analysis of proteins, the method allowed the researchers to compare the patterns of molecules in fermented proteins present in the hairs of Oetzi's clothing with those found in living animals.

"A main advantage of this method is the high stability of hair proteins compared to the more labile DNA molecules," Hollemeyer told Discovery News. "In archaeological samples, the long storage under suboptimal conditions often destroys the DNA structures, but keeps the structural hair proteins mainly conserved," he said.

The Iceman's clothing is the only Neolithic accoutrement that has been found in Europe so well preserved, yet the animal species used to make these clothing have been often the subject of controversy.

It was suggested that the clothing came from red deer, goats and or even chamois, a goat-like animal native to the Alps.

Finding that the mummy wore a coat and leggings of Neolithic sheep hair helps archaeologists understand the social and cultural background of the Iceman, according to Hollemeyer.

Access to such animals "is an indication for a more progressive pastoral-agricultural society," Hollemeyer said.

On the contrary, if his clothes had been "exclusively made from wild games, this would be a sign for a hunter-gatherer society with no access to domesticated species like sheep, goat or cattle," he said.

The Oetzi mummy has been extensively studied since its discovery in 1991 in a melting glacier in the Oetztal Alps. It is now known that his body froze and mummified after a violent death at about age 45.

The Iceman was shot with an arrow -- the head of which remained lodged in his shoulder -- that fatally severed his left subclavian artery. He also suffered a traumatic cerebral lesion, the consequence of a trauma from a blow or a fall onto the rocks.

It's unclear which wound actually killed Oetzi. "I think the blow to the head is significant but not the ultimate cause of death. On the contrary, the rupture of the artery kills you very fast," Frank Rühli, of the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Zurich in Switzerland, told Discovery News.

Rühli, a member of the Swiss-Itaian team who last year discovered the fatal lesion of a close-to-the-shoulder artery, found the new study on the mummy clothes very interesting.

"It particularly shows how much information you can get out of such state-of-the-art methods. Also, it highlights that research on the Iceman is still helpful and will provide more interesting turns in the future," Rühli said.

US Doctors Can Refuse to Provide Abortions

Okay, this one is going to piss me off. I'm sorry, whatever your own viewpoints are on abortion, and I respect your opinion, NO DOCTOR SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO REFUSE TREATMENT OF A PATIENT BECAUSE OF HIS OWN FAITH BELIEFS!!! A doctor is trained to treat and administer healing practices. He takes an oath, the Hippocratic oath (which is ironic as it is a pagan inspired oath, greek that is) to "First, do no harm"

If the doctor refuses to treat because of his own beliefs, and it causes harm, one way or another, to the patient, then he is breaking his oath. He should then be labeled and "Oathbreaker", which in my mind is quite despicable.

I am not one who stands for "on-demand" abortions, but I am Pro-Choice. I think that a woman, who-after much thought and deliberation-chooses to obtain an abortion has a right to it. It is between her and her deity/God/Creator, not between her and the general public. It is none of their bloody business! The general public has absolutely no idea what the woman has gone thru to get to this point. If she answers to anybody, it isn't the general public!

Now, having said that, I do believe there ought to be restrictions. If a woman is prone to getting one after another, offer her an IUD so she doesn't repeatedly get pregnant. Especially if she is using it as "birth-control"...that in my mind is wrong. However, if she is put in a position that she cannot see going thru with the pregnancy, and there is time, counseling first, and after, and allow her the treatment. And I don't necessarily mean faith-based couselling, but something to help her thru the emotional torment she may or may not go thru at the time or later. If her life is in danger, then there should be absolutely no question. Same with rape, incest, etc. And if the fetus is malformed or inviable, and I don't mean that will be disabled, but essentially lifeless, then allow as well.

But all in all, the issue is the woman's alone to decide. And it should take some thought, because it could come back later and trouble her. But I just don't see how a doctor can willy-nilly refuse treatment on any issue just because of his own faith. It really needs to have more thought than that.

Okay, here is the article:


Thursday August 21, 2008
US Doctors Can Refuse to Provide Abortions

Associated Press

Washington - The Bush administration Thursday proposed stronger job protections for U.S. doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions because of religious or moral objections.

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said that health care professionals should not face retaliation from employers or from medical societies because they object to abortion.

"Freedom of conscience is not to be surrendered upon issuance of a medical degree," said Leavitt. "This nation was built on a foundation of free speech. The first principle of free speech is protected conscience."

The proposed rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.

Abortion rights supporters served notice that they intend to challenge the new rule.

"Women's ability to manage their own health care is at risk of being compromised by politics and ideology," Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.

The group, which had complained that earlier drafts of the regulation contained vague language that might block access to birth control, said it still has concerns about the latest version.

"Planned Parenthood continues to be concerned that the Bush administration's proposed regulation poses a serious threat to women's health care by limiting the rights of patients to receive complete and accurate health information and services," Richards added.

But Leavitt said the regulation was intended to protect practitioners who have moral objections to abortion and sterilization, and would not interfere with patients' ability to get birth control or any legal medical procedure.

"Nothing in the new regulation in any way changes a patient's right to any legal procedure," he said, noting that a patient could go to another provider.

"This regulation is not about contraception," Leavitt added. "It's about abortion and conscience. It is very closely focused on abortion and physician's conscience."

The 36-page rule seeks to set up a system for enforcing conscience protections in three separate federal laws, the earliest of which dates to the 1970s. In some cases, the laws aim to protect both providers who refuse to take part in abortions and those who do.

The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.

The underlying laws deal mainly with abortion and sterilization, but both the laws and the language of the rule seem to recognize that objections on conscience grounds could involve other types of services.

The regulation would take effect after a 30-day comment period.


Copyright 2004 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

CNO Visits USS George Washington

Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughead speaks to Sailors and Marines during an all-hands call aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) in San Diego.

080819-N-8273J-019 SAN DIEGO (Aug. 19, 2008) Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Adm. Gary Roughead speaks to Sailors and Marines during an all-hands call aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN 73) in San Diego. CNO spoke about the importance of the upcoming forward deployment of George Washington to the western Pacific and the role of Sailors as ambassadors for the Navy and the nation. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Tiffini M. Jones/Released)



CNO Visits USS George Washington
Story Number: NNS080820-14
Release Date: 8/20/2008 6:01:00 PM
Top News Story - Editors should consider using these stories first in local publications.

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Carlos Gomez, USS George Washington Public Affairs

SAN DIEGO (NNS) -- Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Gary Roughead, visited USS George Washington (CVN 73) at Naval Air Station North Island, San Diego, Aug. 19, to address the crew and take questions as the ship prepares to get underway for Yokosuka, Japan.

Upon deployment to the 7th Fleet area of operations in the Western Pacific, George Washington will become the Navy's only permanently forward-deployed aircraft carrier, replacing USS Kitty Hawk (CV 63), the Navy's last diesel-powered aircraft carrier.

"Now you really are the ambassadors of the United States Navy and ambassadors of the United States," said Roughead, a former George Washington Carrier Strike Group commander. "I know this ship. I know the crew. And you are going to do an absolutely superb job."

More than 500 Kitty Hawk Sailors and 1,800 Carrier Air Wing 5 Sailors have moved aboard George Washington since Kitty Hawk returned to San Diego Aug. 8. Kitty Hawk, the Navy's oldest active-duty warship, will decommission early next year after 47 years of service, 10 of which have been in Japan.

The CNO commended the George Washington crew on their firefighting efforts during a fire May 22, and the subsequent 55,000 man days of repairs performed by crew and the civilian workforce at North Island since the ship arrived here May 27.

"You have done an absolutely incredible job," Roughead said to George Washington's crew during an all-hands call in the ship's hangar bay. "This ship was tested, but you fought valiantly and effectively."

Before leaving, Roughead and Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (SW/FMF) Joe R. Campa Jr. answered questions from the crew ranging from sea-shore rotations to recent world current events.

Campa fielded a number of questions including one related to a recent newspaper article about the use of shipmate in an unflattering way.

"I think that the term 'shipmate' is something honorable and it's something that each one of you earns. It should be something to be very proud of," Campa said.

The visit is the last stop in CNO and MCPON's 10-day tour world tour, which included stops in Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, Singapore and Hawaii.

For more news from USS George Washington, visit www.navy.mil/local/cvn73/.

http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=39227

China sentences 2 elderly women to labor for seeking to protest (20 August 2008)

China sentences 2 elderly women to labor for seeking to protest
By Andrew Jacobs
Wednesday, August 20, 2008

BEIJING: Two women in their late 70s have been sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor" after they repeatedly sought a permit to demonstrate in one of the official Olympic protest areas, according to family members and human rights advocates.

The women, Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, had made five visits to the police this month in an effort to obtain permission to protest what they contended was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing. During their final visit, on Monday, Public Security officials informed them that they had been given administrative sentences for "disturbing the public order," according to Li Xuehui, Wu's son.

Li said his mother and Wang, a former neighbor who is nearly blind, were allowed to return home but were told they could be sent to a detention center at any moment. "Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?" he asked.

The repeat arrests and detentions of aspiring protesters who appeared to follow official procedures for registering their complaints are perhaps the most striking example of how the Olympics have so far failed to force China to relax political controls, even for the short duration of the games.

A man who answered the phone at the Public Security Bureau declined to give out information about the case.

At least a half dozen people have been detained by the authorities after they responded to a government announcement late last month designating venues in three city parks as "protest zones" during the Olympics. So far, no demonstrations have taken place.

Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that 77 people had submitted protest applications, none of which had been approved. Xinhua, quoting a Public Security spokesperson, said all but three applicants had dropped their requests after their complaints had been "properly addressed by relevant authorities or departments through consultations." The last three applications were rejected as incomplete or violating Chinese law.

But the authorities have refused to explain what happened to applicants who disappeared after they submitted their paperwork. Gao Chuancai, a farmer from northeast China who was hoping to publicize government corruption, was forcibly escorted back to his hometown last week and remains in custody.

Relatives of Zhang Wei, a Beijing resident who was also seeking to protest the demolition of her home, were told she would be kept at a detention center for a month. Two rights advocates from southern China have not been heard from since they were seized at the Public Security Bureau's protest application office last week.

Wu and Wang were well known to the authorities for their persistent campaign for greater compensation for the demolition of their homes. Li said his family had given up their home in 2001 with the expectation that they would get one in the new development that replaced it. Instead, he said, the family has been forced to live in a ramshackle apartment on the capital's outskirts.

"I feel very sad and angry because we're only asking for the basic right of housing, and it's been six years. But nobody will do anything to help them," Li said. He said he and Wang's daughter tried to apply for their own protest permit on Tuesday but the police would not even give them the necessary forms.

The two elderly women were given administrative sentences to what is known as re-education through labor, or laojiao, which seeks to reform political and religious dissenters and those charged with minor crimes such as prostitution and petty theft. Government officials say that more than 200,000 people are detained in re-education centers for terms ranging from one to three years, although detentions can be extended for those whose rehabilitation is deemed inadequate.

Human rights advocates have criticized the system because punishment is handed down by officials without a trial or means of appeal. Last year, the government grappled with revamping the system but backed off in the face of opposition from Public Security officials.

Copyright © 2008 The International Herald Tribune http://www.iht.com/

Poet's turbulent marriage remembered in diary

Poet's turbulent marriage remembered in diary

By JENNIFER QUINN, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 3 minutes ago

It was a legendarily turbulent union, fueled by adoration, adultery and alcohol.

In the final hours of Dylan Thomas' life, his wife, Caitlin, according to lore, allegedly stormed in and demanded to know if the celebrated Welsh poet — who she described as the "bloody man" — was dead yet.

But like most marriages, it appears there was a different side, and in a diary that is now for sale, Caitlin Thomas wrote sadly about her dead husband.

"Oh God, oh Dylan, it must be cold down there; it is cold enough on top, in November: the dirtiest month of the year that killed you on the ninth vile day. If only I could take you a bowl of your bread, and milk, and salt, that you always drank at night, to warm you up," the diary says, according to notes provided by a London rare book dealer who is selling the collection.

The couple met in a London pub in 1936 and married a year later. Dylan Thomas died in New York on Nov. 9, 1953. Caitlin Thomas died in 1994.

Her writings, contained in a school exercise book, are included in a collection of more than 40 letters, books, and manuscripts and first editions. Rick Gekoski, the dealer who is selling the materials, said Monday that it came from a New York collector and is priced at $480,000.

Also up for sale is a first-edition copy of Thomas' second book, "Twenty-five Poems."

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
Copyright © 2008 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

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So I looked up Vel' d'Hiv on Google and I found several things.

Here is first article:


Letters from Drancy

Memorials for the 60th anniversary of the first mass round-up of French Jews in 1942 include the publication of a book of 129 victim testimonials, reports Jon Henley

* Jon Henley
* guardian.co.uk,
* Thursday July 18 2002

This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Thursday July 18 2002. It was last updated at 14:23 on July 18 2002.
The operation that became known as the round-up of the Vél d'Hiv began at 4am on Thursday July 16, 1942.

Some 4,500 French policemen took part. The 12,884 victims - including 4,051 children - were held briefly in schools and police stations throughout Paris, then herded into municipal buses and driven away.

Some 7,000 of them, foreign, stateless and French Jews, men women and children, spent five days in the Vélodrome d'Hiver, the winter cycling stadium, on rue Nélaton in the capital's 15th arrondissement, without food and with one water tap between them.

From there, families were sent to two camps in the Loiret district, where the children were separated from their parents. Single adults and couples without children were mostly taken straight to the Drancy transit camp just beyond the Paris ringroad.

Almost all of them ended up in Auschwitz. La rafle du Vél d'Hiv, Operation Spring Wind for the German occupiers, marked the start of the mass round-ups of Jews in France. Of the 33,000 rounded up and deported over the next two months around the country, 2,600 returned.

The Vélodrome d'Hiver itself no longer exists. But nearby, at the place de Martyrs-Juifs, is a monument where the French prime minister, Jean-Pierre Raffarin, will lay a wreath this Sunday in a ceremony also attended by the defence minister, the mayor of Paris, officials from the Jewish community and a handful of survivors.

A special programme on the round-up is being taught this week in Paris schools. Posters have been stuck on all the city's buses: "Sixty years ago, 4,000 Jewish children were arrested, deported and exterminated at Auschwitz. France says no to anti-semitism."

Films and documentaries about the event are being shown on television and at the Forum des Images in Les Halles. Photo exhibitions have been mounted at Montparnasse and St-Lazare main line stations.

A plaque was unveiled yesterday on the rue des Pyrénées in the 20th arrondissement, one of the worst hit in the round-up.

Newspapers have been printing heartrending testimonies and reproducing horrifying letters scribbled on wrapping paper, or pages torn from school exercise books, in the stadium or the subsequent transit camps. A book containing 129 of them, Letters from Drancy, has just been published.

Few guessed what was in store. On the day of the round-up, Paulette Stokfisz-Bronstein wrote to her sister Nana. "The police came and arrested all the Jews in the building, they took me and my two children, I am writing to say we are being taken to the Veélodrome d'Hiver. I ask you to go to my home, 1, passage du Jeu-de-Boules in the 11th, to get the keys from the concierge. Just take all that's there. Take all my things, all you find ... Bring me a few jars of conserves and two skirts so I can change."

Two days later, another letter, this time from the Vél d'Hiv, more concerned. "Take a cushion cover to send me a few blouses and socks and ask Lisa [their sister] to bring them to me here, they'll let her in, but do it quickly because we're moving on from here to an unknown destination ... Bring me some sugar and conserves, because they give us nothing to eat."

On July 31, without news of her sister, Paulette writes again, from the Pithiviers transit camp: "I am perhaps leaving again for an unknown destination. My cousin has already left, her son stayed behind but he is with me. I am going to leave. Jacques and Raymonde [her children] will be left alone. The Red Cross may ask you to take them in.

"I beg you Nana, accept ... Jacques can look after himself. Raymonde goes to school. They won't bother you. Dear Nana, go to my flat and take everything, I give it all to you. I will send you a parcel. There is some money and my jewels. Keep them ... I beg you, have pity on my children. I think this is my last letter ... Keep all I asked you to send. I don't need anything any more."

Paulette Stokfisz-Bronstein was deported to Auschwitz on August 7 1942. Her two children, Jacques and Raymonde, followed on September 2.

Not all the stories of the Vél d'Hiv are so despairing. If they were not dropped from the windows of trains and buses, many of the Letters from Drancy were smuggled out of the stadium or the camps by friendly policemen. And or two testimonies of hope have emerged this week: a 75-year-old woman recounted on the radio this morning how a young policemen escorted her out of the stadium on the day after the round-up.

"He had been looking at me for some time," she said, "and then he just came up to me and asked me to follow him. I did, out of the stadium, sticking right behind him. To everyone who questioned him he said: 'It's alright, she's with me.' He left me at the metro station and said he couldn't go any further. I regret never trying to get in touch with him after it was all over; maybe he got into trouble for what he did."

But the truth remains that it was the French police who implemented - and indeed exceeded - the German plans for Operation Spring Wind. Originally, French Jews and all those under 18 were to have been spared. But, eager to meet the wildly unrealistic Nazi target of 25,000 foreign-born adult Jews, zealous French officials rounded up everyone they could lay their hands on.

It took until 1995 for the French state to acknowledge its role. "Yes," said Jacques Chirac then, soon after he was first elected president of the Republic, "the criminal madness of the occupier was seconded by the French, by the French state, everyone knows it. That day, France accomplished something irreparable."

So in the week that saw an attempt by a lone extreme-right militant to assassinate Mr Chirac, it is only proper that France should make much of the 60th anniversary of a black chapter in its history that it has only recently begun to admit as its own.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/jul/18/worlddispatch.jonhenley



from ask yahoo:

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker
Hi S.Have you read , Jews In France During WW2 By Renee Poznanski, Nathan Bracher. You can read it on line books.google.com/books? It deals with , La Grande Rafle du Vel d'hiv July 16 1942.Also you should read, Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay You should also check out hgs.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/9/1/2... They have journals and accounts of that day.I hope this is of help.Good luck my friend, cathorio.
1 month ago

Asker's Rating:
Asker's Comment:
I am reading Sarah`s Key right now,thats how I became aware of the incident and of how the French police/state were so complicit in the imprisonment and thence deportation of so many Jews to Auschwitz. Your valued input has been very helpful,and five stars are well deserved.

Neanderthal Bone Yields Complete Mitochondrial Genome

Discovery Channel

Neanderthal Bone Yields Complete Mitochondrial Genome
Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


Aug. 7, 2008 -- DNA extracted from a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal bone has just enabled scientists to sequence the complete mitochondrial genome for the human-like species, according to a paper that will be published tomorrow in the journal Cell.

The remarkable feat, which has led to at least three major discoveries about the extinct stocky European individuals, represents a breakthrough for studies on the human family.

"This is the first complete mitochondrial genome sequence from an extinct hominid," lead author Richard Green explained to Discovery News.

Mitochondria, which an individual inherits from his or her mother, are cellular powerhouses that possess their own DNA and include 13 protein-coding genes. The researchers sequenced the Neanderthal mitochondria 35 times to ensure their findings were as accurate as possible.

After studying the newly completed genome, Green, a researcher at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, and his team first concluded that the Neanderthal mitochondria falls outside the range of variation found in humans today, offering no evidence that interbreeding occurred between them and us.

The researchers are quick to add that such interbreeding could still have happened and that the Neanderthals' "exact relationship with modern humans remains a topic of debate."

Clearer is the fact that Neanderthals and humans split from a common ancestor around 660,000 years ago. The researchers based this initially upon prior research that determined humans and chimpanzees diverged from each other six to eight million years ago.

They calculated mtDNA sequence changes for both humans and Neanderthals since that time. These accumulated changes then "let us calculate how long ago was the most recent common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals," Green said.

He added, "This common ancestor likely looked something like Homo erectus." This extinct hominid is believed to have been super strong with a relatively large head and brain.

What most surprised the scientists was how little purification acted upon the Neanderthal's DNA, meaning that the elimination of slightly deleterious alleles, or variant gene forms, didn't occur very often within the population.

"One sensible explanation for this could be a very small effective population size," Green said, explaining that only a few thousand Neanderthals may have roamed Europe around 40,000 years ago, close to when they went extinct.

It's unclear if this was a general feature of the Neanderthal population, perhaps explained by the fact that they had to deal with repeated glaciations, or if some population bottleneck "happened late in the game," he said.

Perhaps the biggest modern human revelation to come out of the project is that there was an explosion of certain amino acid substitutions within the human genome after the Neanderthal/human split.

"What we can say is that there was a lot of change in a very short time within modern humans," Green said. "Further work will be necessary to say what the consequences of these changes were."

John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, told Discovery News that he has "been waiting a long time for this sequence to come out," adding that "all previously reported sequences of Neanderthal mtDNA" were fragmentary when compared to this one.

Geneticist David Reich at the Harvard Medical School also agrees that the newly sequenced genome "is exciting and important."

"The most striking thing about the paper is that it shows that the authors are able to get an extremely reliable DNA sequence out of a (38,000-year-old) Neanderthal fossil especially when they do a large amount of DNA sequencing," Reich told Discovery News, mentioning that it then "becomes obvious that the sequence the authors are obtaining is correct."

Green and his team are already at work on yet another Neanderthal genome project -- sequencing the complete Neanderthal nuclear genome -- that should be finished by the end of the year. It should answer, once and for all, whether or not modern humans and Neanderthals interbred to such a degree that the mixing would have resulted in a Neanderthal genetic contribution to the modern human gene pool.


Copyright © 2008 Discovery Communications, LLC. The number-one nonfiction media company.

Gravity, erosion rob Utah park of popular arch

Gravity, erosion rob Utah park of popular arch

* Story Highlights
* The arch collapsed sometime Monday or Tuesday, park official says
* Located on Devils Garden Trail, the arch was a favorite stop for shutterbugs
* It is the first arch to collapse since 1991, no one reported seeing it fall
* The 12th-largest in the park, the arch was 33 feet tall and 71 feet wide

The Wall Arch on Devils Garden Trail in Utah's Arches National Park collapsed last week, a park official says.


The arch, seen here before its collapse, was one of the most photographed arches in the park.


ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, Utah (AP) -- One of the largest and most photographed arches in Arches National Park has collapsed.

Paul Henderson, the park's chief of interpretation, said Wall Arch collapsed sometime late Monday or early Tuesday.

The arch is along Devils Garden Trail, one of the most popular in the park. For years, the arch has been a favorite stopping point for photographers.

Henderson said the arch was claimed by forces that will eventually destroy others in the park: gravity and erosion.

"They all let go after a while," he said Friday.

He said it's the first collapse of a major arch in the park since nearby Landscape Arch fell in 1991. No one has reported seeing it fall.

Like others in the park, Wall Arch was formed by entrada sandstone that was whittled down over time into its distinctive and photogenic formation.

The arch, first reported and named in 1948, was more than 33 feet tall and 71 feet across. It ranked 12th in size among the park's estimated 2,000 arches.

Rock has continued to fall from the remaining arms of the arch forcing the closure of a portion of the trail.

Officials from the National Park Service and the Utah Geological Survey visited the site Thursday, noting stress fractures in the remaining formation. The trail won't be opened until the debris is cleared away and it's safe for visitors, Henderson said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

All AboutNational Park Service




Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/10/arch.collapse.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

More than 100,000 rare gorillas found in Congo

More than 100,000 rare gorillas found in Congo

* Story Highlights
* Researchers feared only around 50,000 Western lowland gorillas left worldwide
* Now 125,000 primates have been discovered in northern Congo
* Population declining rapidly because of hunting and diseases like Ebola
* Expert: This is the highest-known density of gorillas that's ever been found

(CNN) -- An estimated 125,000 Western lowland gorillas are living in a swamp in equatorial Africa, researchers reported Tuesday, double the number of the endangered primates thought to survive worldwide.

"It's pretty astonishing," Hugo Rainey, one of the researchers who conducted the survey for the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society, told CNN Tuesday.

The last census on the species, carried out during the 1980s, estimated that there were only 100,000 of the gorillas left worldwide. Since then, the researchers estimated, the numbers had been cut in half.

WCS survey teams conducted the research in 2006 and 2007, traveling to the remote Lac Tele Community Reserve in northern Republic of Congo, a vast area of swamp forest.

Acting on a tip from hunters who indicated the presence of gorillas, Rainey said that the researchers trekked on foot through mud for three days to the outskirts of Lac Tele, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the nearest road.

"When we went there, we found an astonishing amount of gorillas," said Rainey, speaking from the International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Though researchers did spot some gorillas, they based their estimate on the number of gorilla nests found at the site, Rainey said. Each gorilla makes a nest to sleep in at night.

"This is the highest-known density of gorillas that's ever been found," Rainey said. VideoWatch a glimpse of gorilla life in African swamp »

Western lowland gorillas are listed as critically endangered, the highest threat category for a species. Their populations are declining rapidly because of hunting and diseases like Ebola hemorrhagic fever, whose symptoms include diarrhea, vomiting and internal and external bleeding. Take a closer look at the Western lowland gorilla »

While the discovery in northern Congo indicates that the gorilla population remains stable in some areas, it is likely that gorillas will remain critically endangered because the threats facing the species are so great, Rainey said. iReport.com: Share photos and video of gorillas in zoos or the wild

"We know very little about Ebola and how it spreads," he said. "We don't even know the animal that spreads it around."

The goal now, Rainey said, is to work with the Congolese government and donors to protect the areas in which the gorillas are known to be living.

Western lowland gorillas, which are found in Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Nigeria as well as the Republic of Congo, are the most numerous and wide-ranging of the four gorilla subspecies, each of which is threatened by extinction, the WCS says. See where the gorillas live »

Illegal hunting and habitat loss have also threatened the Cross River gorillas, found in the highlands of Cameroon and Nigeria. Only about 250 to 300 are estimated to remain in the world, the WCS says.

War, habitat loss, poaching and disease are the major threats to the mountain gorillas, made famous by researcher Dian Fossey and the film "Gorillas in the Mist." The mountain gorilla population is starting to recover after decades of conservation work. From a population of around 230 in the 1970s, the mountain gorillas now number around 700, the WCS says.

Poaching and war have also threatened populations of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Zaire. The WCS estimates their population to be around 16,000.

News of the discovery of the Western lowland gorillas in northern Congo comes the same week as a report that almost 50 percent of the world's primates are in danger of extinction. VideoWatch what gorilla expert thinks of find »

The report, also delivered to the Edinburgh conference, cites habitat loss and hunting as the greatest threats. The situation is especially dire in Asia, where the report says more than 70 percent of monkeys, apes, and other primates are classified as vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered.

Conservation International and the International Union for Conservation of Nature issued the report.

All AboutEbola Virus • Republic of the Congo • Wildlife • Wildlife Conservation Society



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Co-worker drives body in UPS truck

Sun July 27, 2008


Co-worker drives body in UPS truck
Story Highlights
Co-worker agrees to take body of man who died of cancer to funeral service
Michael McGowan plans to keep picture of deceased co-worker in his truck
Widow describes her husband as having been "the happiest UPS man alive"


CRYSTAL LAKE, Illinois (AP) -- Jeff Hornagold loved being a UPS driver.

So when the suburban Chicago man died this week of lung cancer, longtime co-worker Michael McGowan agreed to take him on one last delivery.

McGowan transported Hornagold's body from Davenport Family Funeral Home to Saturday's funeral services in his UPS truck.

McGowan says he plans to keep a picture of Hornagold in his truck until he retires so that they can keep riding together.

Hornagold was a UPS driver for 20 years, and his wife Judy Hornagold described him as "just the happiest UPS man alive."

She says the special delivery was the perfect tribute.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Rabbi condemns release of purported Obama prayer note

Rabbi condemns release of purported Obama prayer note
Story Highlights
Prayer note purportedly written by Barack Obama removed from prayer wall
Rabbi who supervises wall condemns its removal
Israeli newspaper prints what it says are the contents of the prayer


JERUSALEM (CNN) -- The rabbi who supervises Jerusalem's Western Wall condemned the removal of a prayer note purportedly written by Sen. Barack Obama, saying the action was "sacrilegious."

Sen. Barack Obama leaves a prayer note in Jerusalem's Western Wall.

The U.S. presidential candidate visited the holy site early Thursday and placed a note in the cracks of the wall -- a custom of visitors.

The note was subsequently removed from the wall, according to the Israeli newspaper, Ma'ariv, which printed what it said were the contents of the prayer.

Ma'ariv said a seminary student gave the note to the newspaper.

Obama's senior strategist Robert Gibbs told CNN, "We haven't confirmed nor denied" that the note is from the Illinois senator.

"This sacrilegious action deserves sharp condemnation and represents a desecration of the holy site," said Rabbi Shmuel Rabinowitz, who supervises the Western Wall, in a statement.

He said notes are supposed to be removed twice a year, on the eve of Jewish New Year and Passover, and placed in a repository under supervision "to keep them hidden from human eyes."

"Notes which are placed in the Western Wall are between the person and his Maker; Heaven forbid that one should read them or use them in any way," Rabinowitz said.

CNN's Sasha Johnson, who was a part of a pool of journalists who accompanied Obama to the wall, said when reporters asked Obama what he wrote, he declined to share the contents of his prayer.

Obama told the reporters it was a private conversation between him and God, Johnson said.

"Anybody who goes to the Western Wall and places a note there does so under the assumption that it's a private communication between him and God, and therefore once he has that presumption of confidentiality, there are rabbinic decrees against reading anybody else's private communications," said Jonathan Rosenblum, director of the Orthodox Am Ehad think tank.

Obama returned to the United States Saturday night, bringing to an end his eight-day trip to the Middle East and Europe.

CNN's Paula Hancocks contributed to this report.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/27/obama.prayer/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Randy Pausch: YouTube's star lecturer dies at 47

"If I don't seem as depressed or morose as I should be, sorry to disappoint you," Pausch said.

YouTube's star lecturer dies at 47

Story Highlights
Randy Pausch was computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon

His September 2007 "Last Lecture" became Internet sensation, best-seller

Pausch's lecture celebrated living the life he always dreamed



(CNN) -- Randy Pausch, the professor whose "last lecture" became a runaway phenomenon on the Internet and was turned into a best-selling book, died Friday of pancreatic cancer, Carnegie Mellon University announced on its Web site.


Randy Pausch emphasized the joy of life in his "last lecture," originally given in September 2007.

Pausch, 47, a computer science professor, delivered the lecture, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007, a month after being told he had three to six months to live because his cancer had returned.

The lanky, energetic Pausch talked about goals he had accomplished, like experiencing zero gravity and creating Disney attractions, and those he had not, including becoming a professional football player.

He used rejections he was handed when he applied for jobs at Disney to comment on the importance of persistence.

"The brick walls are there for a reason ... to show us how badly we want something," he said. "Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don't want it badly enough. They're there to stop the other people." Watch what Pausch did for his wife »

Starting with a joke about "a deathbed conversion" -- "I just bought a Macintosh" computer -- the educator went on to say that one of his childhood dreams was to write an entry in the World Book Encyclopedia.

"I guess you can tell the nerds early," he added.

An expert in virtual reality, Pausch did go on to write an encyclopedia entry on the subject.

He discussed his fondness for winning stuffed animals at fairs, showed a slide of them, then -- pretending to be concerned his audience would think the image had been digitally manipulated -- produced them onstage.

Donning silly costume items like a vest with arrows sticking out of it and a Mad Hatter's hat, he described working with students as a way to help other people achieve their dreams.

He also played down his own importance, saying that after he got a Ph.D., his mother took to introducing him as "a doctor, but not the kind who helps people."

The lecture has been viewed more than 3.2 million times since it was posted on YouTube in December.

Pausch co-founded the university's Entertainment Technology Center and was known for developing interdisciplinary courses and research projects that attracted new students to the field of computer science. He also spent his career encouraging computer scientists to collaborate with artists, dramatists and designers, Carnegie Mellon said.

The university's president, Jared Cohon, described Pausch as "a brilliant researcher and gifted teacher."

"His love of teaching, his sense of fun and his brilliance came together in the Alice project, which teaches students computer programming while enabling them to do something fun -- making animated movies and games," Cohon added. "Carnegie Mellon -- and the world -- are better places for having had Randy Pausch in them."

Pausch describes Cohon urging him to talk about having fun in his lecture, and telling him it's difficult because it's like asking a fish to talk about water.


"I don't know how not to have fun," he said. "I'm dying and I'm having fun. And I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."

Pausch is survived by his wife, Jai, and three children.

July 24, 1911: Hiram Bingham 'Discovers' Machu Picchu

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Science : Discoveries


July 24, 1911: Hiram Bingham 'Discovers' Machu Picchu
By Randy Alfred 17 hours ago


Bingham's expedition photographed Machu Picchu soon after his 1911 arrival.

1911: Exploring in Peru, Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham locates Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas. The event will set off a century of controversy.

Bingham was born in Honolulu, the son and grandson of Protestant missionaries in the Pacific. He graduated from Yale University and did graduate work in history and politics at the University of California and Harvard.

Bingham had already made two expeditions to South America -- and published a book on each -- when he returned to Peru in 1911. He located the last Inca capital, Vitcos, and made the first ascent of the 21,763-foot Mt. Coropuma. Then came the find that would make him famous: Machu Picchu.

Bingham eventually left academe for Republican politics, serving as lieutenant governor of Connecticut. He was also governor for one day, before moving on to the U.S. Senate for eight years. The Senate censured Bingham in 1929 for hiring a lobbyist. He died in 1956.

The controversies have not ended:

Did Bingham "discover" Machu Picchu?

Hardly. He was led there by local people who lived nearby and were using Machu Picchu's agricultural terraces. He did, however, conduct the first archaeological excavations there and uncovered the famous structures hidden by four centuries of disuse. He also documented, mapped and photographed the site over several years.

Was Bingham the first European to visit Machu Picchu?

Maybe not. Some claim that the German adventurer and businessman Augusto Berns had visited the site some four decades earlier, with the blessing of the Peruvian government. Others say that two missionaries had trekked there in 1906, five years before Bingham.

Bingham, however, was clearly the first to scientifically explore the place, and he also publicized it. The entire April 1913 issue of National Geographic was devoted to it. Bingham also wrote about it, notably Inca Land: Explorations in the Highlands of Peru (1922) and Lost City of the Incas, a 1948 best-seller.

What was Bingham looking for?

After locating the capital, Vitcos, he was hoping to find the last Inca stronghold, Vilcabamba, which fell to the Spanish in 1573. Machu Picchu was in the wrong direction from Vitcos to be a likely Vilcabamba, but Bingham was so impressed by Machu Picchu's mountainous impregnability that for the first years of his exploration he thought he must have found Vilcabamba.

What kind of place was Machu Picchu?

For many years, it was uncertain if Machu Picchu was a city, a mountain fortress, a religious shrine, a royal palace or various combinations of these. Continuing archaeological exploration has produced a consensus that it was a highland retreat of the Inca royalty. "Machu Picchu was simply a royal estate," says archaeologist Richard Burger. "You can think of it as the Inca equivalent of Camp David."

Who owns the artifacts Bingham removed from Machu Picchu?

Yale University's Peabody Museum has housed hundreds of museum-quality artifacts (and thousands of fragments) for nearly a century. The government of Peru maintains that these were only loaned to Bingham, and that they belong to Peru and its people.

After years of negotiations, Yale and Peru signed a Memorandum of Understanding in March 2008. Yale acknowledged Peruvian ownership of the collection and pledged to work with Peru to promote an international traveling exhibit of the collection and create a permanent, new museum for it near Machu Picchu. Some prominent Peruvians think the agreement still gives Yale too much control.

The dispute is not alone. A similar controversy rages over Britain's continued control of the Elgin Marbles, decorative pieces removed from the Parthenon in Athens two centuries ago.
Does tourism threaten Machu Picchu?

Some people fear that. Machu Picchu was already a World Heritage Site when it was named one of the Modern Wonders of the World in 2007. That led archaeologist Luis Lumbreras to warn that the influx of tourists was already damaging both the historic site and the fragile ecosystem surrounding it.

This controversy, too, is not alone. Striking a balance between protecting a site and providing access to let people experience it has caused restrictions at England's Stonehenge, France's Lascaux cave paintings and elsewhere.

Balancing preservation and access is also a conundrum in planning for Yosemite and other national parks. Some natural sites, like the exact location of the world's oldest living tree (Methuselah, a bristlecone pine in the eastern Sierra Nevada) or the world's tallest tree (a coast redwood in Northern California) are just plain kept secret.

Source: Various

Indigenous grandmas nearly kicked out of Vatican

Indigenous grandmas nearly kicked out of Vatican

© Indian Country Today July 18, 2008. All Rights Reserved
Posted: July 18, 2008
by: Rob Capriccioso





Photo courtesy Marisol Villanueava --

Thirteen indigenous grandmothers, formally known as the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, initial greeting at the Vatican was not pleasant. The group was almost kicked out while performing a prayer and waiting to speak with Pope Benedict XVI.



ROME - They went to pray. They went to see Pope Benedict XVI on his home turf. They went to ask that he rescind historic church doctrine that played a role in the genocidal onslaught of millions of indigenous people worldwide.



For 13 indigenous grandmothers, accomplishing only one of their three goals wouldn't have been so bad - had they also not been harassed by several Vatican policemen who claimed the women were conducting ''anti-Catholic'' demonstrations.



The elders, formally known as the International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers, convened in the morning hours of July 9 at St. Peter's Square. After setting up an altar cloth, candles and sacred objects, including feathers and incense, they began holding a prayer and ceremony circle. Nine-year-old Davian Joell Stand-Gilpin, a direct descendant of Chief Dull Knife of the Lakota Nation, was brought along by one of the grandmothers to participate in traditional regalia.



Soon, however, four Vatican police officials asked the women to stop the prayer ceremony, claiming their prayers were in contradiction to the church's teachings - despite the two crosses on the alter cloth and some of the members being practitioners of the Catholic faith.



The officials told Carole Hart, an Emmy and Peabody award-winning producer and filmmaker traveling with the grandmas, that the group was in violation of Vatican policy. They said a permit Hart had obtained in order to document the prayer gathering was only relevant in terms of filming, but did not allow the women to pray, sing or burn incense.



The police said the actions of the grandmothers were ''idolatrous.''



Through the course of obtaining the permit, Hart had written to Vatican officials explaining that the grandmothers would be conducting a prayer ceremony at the site.



''We stuck to the fact that we were legitimately there with this permit,'' Hart said. ''The grandmas did not back down.''



Still, the police urged the grandmothers to move on; but Hart and the group appealed the decision to a higher authority. Finally, the police brought back a law official who assessed the situation. Upon seeing 13 indigenous elder women and hearing one of their songs, the official concluded there was no problem with the ceremony.



The official also ultimately invited the grandmothers to enter St. Peter's Basilica to rest and pray.



Despite their short-term success, the ultimate goal of the grandmothers - to hand-deliver a statement to Pope Benedict XVI, asking him to rescind several controversial papal bulls that played a part in the colonization of indigenous lands - was thwarted.



Documents from the 15th century, such as the papal bulls, show the papacy played a role in the genocidal onslaught that affected millions of indigenous people on the North American continent. In 1455, for instance, Pope Nicolas authorized Portugal ''to invade, search out, capture, vanquish and subdue all Saracens and pagans'' along the west coast of Africa, enslave them and confiscate their property - which set the tone for European interaction with the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere.



Just a short time before the grandmothers left for their long-planned journey to Rome, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would be leaving the Vatican to rest at his summer home, called Castel Gandolfo, in preparation for a trip to Australia.



The pope had originally been scheduled to be in residence July 9. Laura Jackson, the grandmothers' publicist, described the pope's decision to leave the Vatican as a ''sudden cancellation'' and noted that the grandmas held tickets to a scheduled public audience he was to have held that day.



While Castel Gandolfo is less than 20 miles away from the Vatican, the grandmothers ultimately decided not to make the journey to the pope's summer getaway despite some in their inner circle encouraging them to pay an unexpected visit.



Hart believes the grandmothers chose to focus on St. Peter's Square because it's part of the Vatican and is a strong symbol of the pope.



''As women of prayer, I think they felt that bringing their prayer there, on the very ground on which the church as an institution stands, as close as they could get to the heart of the church, would have a great effect on what will happen next,'' Hart said. Additionally, the women had no guarantee that they would even be able to enter the grounds of the pope's summer residence.



Instead, the elders left a package with one of the pope's personal guards at the Vatican. The package contained a written statement the women had sent to the Vatican in 2005 decrying the papal bulls, to which the Vatican never responded. It also contained a new 632-word statement to the pope asking him to repeal three Christian-based doctrines of ''discovery'' and ''conquest'' that set a foundation for claiming lands occupied by indigenous people around the world.



''We carry this message for Pope Benedict XVI, traveling with the spirits of our ancestors,'' the women said in their new message. ''While praying at the Vatican for peace, we are praying for all peoples. We are here at the Vatican, humbly, not as representatives of indigenous nations, but as women of prayer.''



The package was given to the pope's guard via a traditional Lakota manner, by extending it to him three times with him then accepting it on the fourth attempt. The entire process was captured on film, and is expected to be made into a documentary by Hart in the coming year.



It is unknown whether the pope has yet personally received the package, but legal scholars and Native activists in the U.S. have nonetheless been paying close attention to the grandmothers' journey.



''I think the trip is very significant,'' said Steven Newcomb, co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of the book, ''Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery,'' and an Indian Country Today columnist.



''These are women who are very much grounded in their own languages and traditions. They're able to raise visibility of the issue in ways that others are perhaps less effective.''



The grandmothers from the U.S. who sit on the women's council are Margaret Behan, of the Arapaho/Cheyenne of Montana; Agnes Baker Pilgrim, of the Takelma Siletz; Beatrice Long Visitor Holy Dance and Rita Long Visitor Holy Dance, both Oglala Lakota of Black Hills, S.D.; Mona Polacca, Havasupai/Hopi; and Rita Pitka Blumenstein, Yupik Eskimo.



All of the grandmothers are currently in private council in Assisi, Italy, and are expected to be returning home by early August.