Dogs may have helped Humans beat the Neanderthals

Dogs may have helped Humans beat the Neanderthals One of the most compelling – and enduring – mysteries in archaeology concerns the rise of early humans and the decline of Neanderthals. For about 250,000 years, Neanderthals lived and evolved, quite successfully, in the area that is now Europe. Somewhere between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago, [...]

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Sullivan Ballou Letter – Ashoken Farewell

I’ve not yet had the opportunity to see Ken Burns’ masterful work, The Civil War. But I did see this one clip. [1] A week before the Battle of Bull Run, Sullivan Ballou, a Major in the 2nd Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote home to his wife, Sarah, in Smithfield. The letter was written from Washington, D.C. [...]

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When Blood-Sucking Mega-Fleas Stalked the Earth!

The giant dinosaurs that roamed the world some 150 million years ago shared the planet with equally daunting parasites: blood-gobbling fleas that were up two centimetres long. This according to a recent article in Nature, the international weekly journal of science. (Long, serrated piercing tubes and grasping claws suggest adaptation to feed on hairy animals or feathered [...]

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Mississippi Voters: Obama’s a Muslim

A March 10 – 11 survey by Public Policy Polling reveals that a majority of Republicans in Alabama and Mississippi – states with primary elections last night Tuesday March 13 – believe the President of the United States is a Muslim. Forty-five percent of Republican voters in Alabama think Obama is a Muslim, while 41 [...]

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The Oldest Rock Art in the New World

A carving of a stick figure discovered by archaeologists in a cave in Brazil is believed to be the earliest example of rock art in the Americas and could shed new light on when the New World was first settled. (No, not THAT kind of rock art!) The team of archaeologists from the University of [...]

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Quick & Easy Purim Hamantashen

This Wednesday night, March 7, marks the beginning of the Jewish festival of Purim, commemorating the events of the biblical Book of Esther in ancient Persia (now Iran). The wicked Persian premier, Haman, plotted to wipe out all the Jews (sound familiar?) but was ultimately thwarted. Purim falls into the “they tried to kill us, [...]

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Partners in Torah

A few weeks ago, I signed up with a program called Partners in Torah. It is run by that fabulous adult Jewish education organization, Aish HaTorah. [1] The premise is quite simple. People who, for various reasons, cannot get together with a study partner to learn Torah, Jewish history, Hebrew, Talmud, Halacha (Jewish law), and [...]

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Cricket Fossil Reveals Jurassic Love Song!

Just in time for Valentine’s Day… Fossil Cricket Reveals Jurassic Love Song Yes, those love-besotted geeks over at ScienceDaily.com have spared every expense in bringing us this heart-warming tale of prehistoric passion. [Present day Katydid (Tettigonia viridissima)] The nerdlings gush, “The love song of an extinct cricket that lived 165 million years ago has been [...]

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Ancient Popcorn Discovered in Peru!

For all of you scoffers and nay-sayers out there who kvetch about archaeology never producing anything truly noteworthy and relevant… Ancient Popcorn Discovered in Peru! As the tireless geeks and nerdlings at ScienceDaily.com reported earlier this month, “People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before [...]

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Grave Desecration in B.C.

Last week, vandals went into a Jewish cemetery on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Swastikas were scrawled on gravestones in Victoria’s historic Emanu-El Jewish Cemetery. The vandalism was reported Saturday night (Dec. 31/11) and occurred the same day because a caretaker had been there a day before. Rabbi Harry Brechner wrote an open letter calling on the vandals [...]

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