Scientists plan to decipher ancient Zapoteca Writing in new Mexico lab

October 3rd, 2009 WASHINGTON - Scientists have put a certain controversy to rest, by ascertaining that in ancient times, the Earth's magnetic field was structured like the two-pole model of today, which suggests that the methods geoscientists use to reconstruct the geography of early land masses on the globe are accurate. The findings may lead to a better understanding of historical continental movement, which relates to changes in climate.

September 19th, 2009 LONDON - If you want to know if someone is telling you the truth, just go through his or her handwriting, say scientists in Haifa, Israel. According to psychologists, handwriting changes when someone lies, and this is so because the brain has to work harder to invent facts, which then in turn interfere with the normal writing process.

September 16th, 2009 SEOUL - Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient Chinese book of Buddhism chantings in a Korean temple. According to a report in Korea Times, the Hangeul copy of an ancient Chinese book, which contains the notes of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910) scholar Kim Si-seup, was discovered at Baekryunam, Haein Temple.

September 8th, 2009 Anthology from National Geographic AdventureWASHINGTON — National Geographic Adventure is celebrating its 10th anniversary with an anthology of work from the magazine called "The New Age of Adventure: 10 Years of Great Writing." The paperback ($16.95) includes work by writers like Sebastian Junger, Peter Matthiessen and Philip Caputo. Topics include emperor penguins in Antarctica, volunteers who risk their lives to save mountain gorillas in Congo and a yearlong coming-of-age road trip through Europe and Asia.

September 7th, 2009 LONDON - A team of archaeologists has solved the ancient mystery of why the odd-looking statues on the Easter Island statues wear red hats. Up to one thousand years ago, the islanders started putting giant red hats on the statues.

September 3rd, 2009 Israeli team working to decipher ancient textsJERUSALEM — Israeli researchers said Thursday they are developing a computer program to make ancient documents more legible and easily indexed, which could eventually lead to a searchable catalog of archived historical texts. The program, which is being developed by a team of computer scientists and historians at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, would make the faded, smudged or overwritten words in ancient texts easier to read.

September 2nd, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of mathematicians and scientists has rejected claims that the Indus Valley people were functionally illiterate, by employing computer modeling to prove that the Harappan script communicated language. In 2004, perhaps out of befuddlement and frustration, a group of scholars declared that the ancient Indus Valley script marked only rudimentary pictograms and that the people during the Harappan period were functionally illiterate.

August 29th, 2009 SYDNEY - A recent research has determined that an ancient, indecipherable text from the Indus Valley civilization is being decoded with the help of a computer program. According to a report by ABC News, though it has yet to decrypt this mysterious language, the program may help to decipher other ancient texts whose meanings have been long since forgotten.

August 5th, 2009 LONDON - Early relatives of spiders that lived around 300 million years ago now stand revealed in detailed three-dimensional models, says a study. Scientists at Imperial College London (ICL) have created detailed 3D computer models of two fossilized specimens of ancient creatures called Cryptomartus Hindi and Eophrynus Prestvicii, closely related to modern-day spiders.

July 14th, 2009 SYDNEY - Scientists have discovered a 400 million-year-old reproductive organ in an ancient fish specimen, which is the oldest penis-like structure found yet. According to a report by ABC News, earlier this year, the team, led by Australian palaeontologist Dr John Long, predicted some ancient fish from the Devonian era, had an attachment to their pelvic bone, which were used by males to fertilize females.

July 13th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A team of researchers and scholars are using high-tech imaging to clear the layers of text hidden beneath words and letters written on levels of ancient papyrus, which may reveal fascinating insights into the writing and everyday life of early Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies. As part of the research, a team of national researchers and scholars examined dozens of papyri among the thousands of papyrological pieces in the University of Michigan (U-M) collection for the last four weeks.

July 9th, 2009 LONDON - The restoration of a 2,000-year-old bronze sculpture of Greek athlete Apoxyomenos may help scientists understand how to prevent metal corrosion and discover the safest ways to permanently store nuclear waste, says a new study. The conclusion is based on a new study on the so-called "bio-mineralization" of Apoxyomenos.

June 5th, 2009 Scientists find more dinosaur bones at Utah quarrySALT LAKE CITY — Scientists at one of Utah's major new dinosaur quarries have found 60 to 70 new bones this spring, including what appears to be a 20-foot-long neck bone discovered this week. The latest finds are fresh evidence that the site near Hanksville could be a large and important source of bones in the coming years.

May 25th, 2009 WASHINGTON - A computer scientist from the University of Kentucky hopes that modern digital technology will enable him to read two of the hundreds of fragile papyrus scrolls found in a villa at Herculaneum, thought to have been owned at one time by Julius Caesar's father-in-law, and unlock secrets they have held for almost 2,000 years. Brent Seales, the Gill professor of engineering in UK's computer science department, plans to use an X-Ray CT scanning system to collect interior images of the scrolls' rolled-up pages, hoping to later digitally "unroll" them on a computer screen so that they become readable to scholars.

April 30th, 2009 WASHINGTON - The Rosetta Stone, an ancient Egyptian artefact, has allowed 19th century scholars to translate symbols left by an ancient civilization thus enabling them to decipher the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphics. But the symbols found on many other ancient artefacts remain a mystery, including those of a people that inhabited the Indus valley between Pakistan and India.