HISTORY/EDUCATION

An ancient masterpiece: 50 million year old sunflower fossil evokes memories of Van Gogh painting

September 25, 2010
An ancient masterpiece: 50 million year old sunflower fossil evokes memories of Van Gogh painting

At first sight, the bold strokes and colours are strikingly reminiscent of one of Vincent van Gogh’s famous sunflower paintings. And the similarity is no accident – for this early masterpiece, dating back almost 50 million years, is believed to be the ancestor of modern daisies and sunflowers. Scientists found the beautifully preserved fossil...
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Britain’s oldest working window built 1,000 years ago found buried in wall of Saxon church

September 23, 2010
Britain’s oldest working window built 1,000 years ago found buried in wall of Saxon church

Builders working on a tiny Saxon church have unearthed Britain’s oldest working window, dating back to pre-1066. The wooden-framed window was built 1,000 years ago but lay buried in the wall of St Andrew’s Church for about 150 years after it was covered up by Victorian renovations. It has now been revealed after shocked...
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Wind could have parted Red Sea: Biblical tale of Moses ‘may really have happened’

September 23, 2010
Wind could have parted Red Sea: Biblical tale of Moses ‘may really have happened’

By TOM KELLY The dramatic parting of the Red Sea for the Israelites is perhaps the most spectacular miracle described in the Old Testament. Now scientists believe it may actually have happened – although it owed more to Mother Nature than to Moses. A computer simulation suggests that a powerful east wind, blowing for...
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Slideshow of The world’s oldest living things (including an 80,000 year old tree!)

September 15, 2010
Slideshow of The world’s oldest living things (including an 80,000 year old tree!)

Rachel Sussman shows photographs of the world’s oldest continuously living organisms — from 2,000-year-old brain coral off Tobago’s coast to an “underground forest” in South Africa that has lived since before the dawn of agriculture. About Rachel Sussman Rachel Sussman is on a quest to celebrate the resilience of life by identifying and photographing...
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Beautiful book of full scale bird paintings from the 19th century set to net a cool £6m at Sotheby’s

September 12, 2010
Beautiful book of full scale bird paintings from the 19th century set to net a cool £6m at Sotheby’s

When it comes to buying books, generally there isn’t much to say about the purchase. In general, many of your friends will have a copy already or at least have heard of the text, trumping your possession and knowledge. However, whoever manages to snag this book – to be auctioned at Sotheby’s this year...
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Rare time and date phenomenon takes place

September 12, 2010
Rare time and date phenomenon takes place

If you blinked, you missed it. Mathematicians were celebrating a rare numerical phenomenon today when the time and date read 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The event, known as Sequential Day, occurred at 12.34pm and 56.7 seconds today, while the date completed the pattern with 8.9.10. The phenomenon is...
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New Photos of West Gate Bridge Tragedy On 40th Anniversary

September 10, 2010
New Photos of West Gate Bridge Tragedy On 40th Anniversary

Jared Lynch Frank Coates’s photos capture the scale of the disaster. LORRAINE Coates says her husband Frank was no photographer. But the former Russell Street police officer captured haunting images of Melbourne’s worst construction disaster. Mr Coates, a homicide detective, took the crime scene photographs of the West Gate Bridge collapse 40 years ago....
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Further your dead-ucation by studying zombies at US university

September 10, 2010
Further your dead-ucation by studying zombies at US university

They’re slow-moving, dirty and have terrible diets… students can now relate to zombies even more / AFP STUDENTS at the University of Baltimore, Md. are being offered a new class on zombies, The Washington Post reports. The ghoulish subject – Media Genres: Zombies – will be taught by Arnold Blumberg who co-authored the book Zombiemania,...
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The distance learners: Pupils are given maths lessons…by teachers 4,000 miles away in INDIA

September 10, 2010
The distance learners: Pupils are given maths lessons…by teachers 4,000 miles away in INDIA

By LAURA CRAIK A primary school has hived off maths tuition to graduates in India because they are cheaper to hire than home-grown teachers. Pupils at the North London school are taught online by tutors 4,000 miles away. The company behind the service expects more schools to follow suit as the public spending squeeze takes...
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Archaeologists discover 200-year-old Moby Dick skeleton on banks of Thames

September 10, 2010
Archaeologists discover 200-year-old Moby Dick skeleton on banks of Thames

Scientists have discovered the bones of a gigantic whale that was the size of the legendary Moby Dick and which was abandoned on the banks of the Thames more than 200 years ago. The headless skeleton of the rare North Atlantic right whale weighs around half a tonne, is 52 feet long and around...
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