Scuttlebutt Pipeline

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CAIRO - Egypt will run DNA tests on an unidentified mummy to determine whether it is the pharaoh Tuthmosis I, who ruled over a period of military expansion and extensive construction, state news agency MENA said on Tuesday.

Egypt’s chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass said the findings would be compared with DNA from mummies of known members of Tuthmosis’s family, including Queen Hatshepsut, whose mummy was identified last week, and Kings Tuthmosis II and III, according to MENA.

Hawass said on Wednesday that he had recently concluded that a mummy once assumed to be that of Tuthmosis I was not in fact his, but belonged to a much younger man who died from an arrow wound.

According to MENA, Hawass said the conclusion had prompted a new search for Tuthmosis’s mummy.
Tuthmosis, who took the throne somewhere around 1506 BC, led a series of successful military expeditions, expanding Egypt’s territory into Nubia and the Levant.

After his death, he was succeeded by Tuthmosis II, his son from a minor wife, who chose to marry his royal half-sister, the famous Queen Hatshepsut, to cement his claim to the throne.

Article Source

I still find it amazing how the many breakthroughs in DNA analysis has made such a deep impact on so many different fields. From Criminal Justice, Sociology, Genealogy, Anthropology to even History. Where would be without this technology?

ST. LOUIS - A two-headed snake named “We,” the main attraction at the World Aquarium, has died.

The 8-year-old rat snake died of natural causes during the weekend, said caretaker Leonard Sonnenschein. Most two-headed snakes survive for only a week or two.

“It’s terrible news,” Sonnenschein said. “People come in every day and say: ’I’m here to see the two-headed snake.”’

Sonnenschein said more than a million people have seen We over the years. Children were especially fascinated by the snake, wondering how two heads could coexist on the same body as We sometimes strained to slither in two directions at once.

“These kinds of questions helped spur the science spirit in children,” Sonnenschein said.
Sonnenschein said he bought We from a snake breeder in Indiana for $15,000 when the reptile was just a few weeks old.

A taxidermist is preserving We’s body, which should be back on display within a week, Sonnenschein said.

(Article Source)

This saddens me beyond words. Snakes are such beautiful and misunderstood animals and to thinkt hat one so rare and beautiful as this one has passed on makes want to cry. I have never seen a double headed snake myself and would have loved to meet this one.

Canadian actor James Doohan’s remains along with two hundred other people were launched on the first commercial sub-orbital launch today from the new Spaceport America site.

Spaceport launch a success
By Jose L. Medina Sun-News reporter
Article Launched: 04/29/2007 01:00:00 AM MDT

UPHAM — Same place, much different result: Spaceport America is officially open.

For the first time, a vehicle launched from New Mexico’s fledgling commercial spaceport in southern Sierra County reached space as the SpaceLoft SL-2 rocket — built by UP Aerospace of Farmington, Conn. — made history at 8:58 a.m. MDT Saturday.

“You’re standing on hallowed ground now. Spaceport America is now an official spaceport,” said UP Aerospace President Jerry Larson, who helped design the rocket.

Wende Doohan and Suzan Cooper, widows of Star Trek actor James Doohan and Mercury 7 astronaut Gordon Cooper, pressed the “go” button which sent the SL-2 and small amounts of their husbands’ ashes and 200 others on board into space.

“Keep going, keep going. That’s it. Eleven, twelve, that’s it. We got it!” said Eric Knight. The UP Aersopace CEO counted the seconds it took for the SL-2 to burn off all its fuel, putting the 20-foot rocket at a coasting speed of 3,400 miles per hour and a sure trajectory to space. It reached an altitude of almost 73 miles before falling back to Earth, splitting in two, deploying parachutes and landing safely at White Sands Missile Range, 33 miles east of the launch site. A sonic boom thundered down on the remote site and the hundreds of onlookers watching about four miles away from the mission control center. Among those witnessing the historic event were the BBC and CBS. The launch was carried live on CNN.

“This just put us on the map,” Knight said. “We’re a small company. We don’t have the millions and millions of dollars in marketing to put the word out. It’s really to show off what we can do. We were really not on the map. We are now.”

UP has plans for as many as six additional flights later this year. A date for the next launch has not been set.

With the launch, UP Aerospace not only gave themselves more credibility, they also gave the $198 million commercial spaceport project more viability and gave families of those whose cremains were on the rocket a great source of comfort.

“He worked in aerospace for 40 years,” James De Carufel, 60, of Atlanta, Ga., said of his late father, Arthur. Some of his ashes were on UP’s rocket.

“This is probably the best thing that could happen … when he hit space, I’m sure he had a big smile on his face,” De Carufel said.

Family members paid $495 to place a few grams of their relatives’ ashes on the rocket. Celestis, a Houston company, contracted with UP to send the cremated remains into space.

Charles Chafer, chief executive of Celestis, said last month that a CD with more than 11,000 condolences and fan notes was placed on the rocket with Doohan’s remains.

Doohan died in July 2005 at age 85. The cremains of Gene Roddenberry, who created “Star Trek,” were sent into space in 1997.

Cooper died in October 2004 at the age of 77. Cooper piloted the sixth and last flight of the Mercury program and later commanded Gemini 5.

Saturday’s launch was in stark contrast to UP’s first attempt to reach space last year from the spaceport site.

On Sept. 25, after more than a seven-hour delay, UP launched its SpaceLoft XL. The XL corkscrewed out of control seconds into its flight and never reached space. With officials powerless to control it, the rocket crashed west of WSMR and was destroyed. Company officials blamed the failure on a faulty fin design.

UP’s second rocket made it off the ground less than half an hour behind schedule Saturday, thanks in part to someone mistakenly wandering into a secured area.

On the technical side, almost all systems on the rocket performed well, Larson said. The lone malfunction was a signal beacon that kept WSMR from being able to track the vehicle in the opening moments of the 13-minute flight.

The weather also cooperated with surface winds staying below 20 miles per hour and opening a window for launch.

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, is said to be developing the spaceport north of Van Horn, Texas. Bezos’ Blue Origin is working to develop tourist space flights.

British billionaire Richard Branson also has announced plans to launch a space tourism company, which is expected to have its headquarters at the New Mexico spaceport.

source: Las Cruces Sun News

A rare find was discovered at the construction site of an upcoming Wal-Mart in Phoenix, Arizona. While digging a hole to plant a tree on the site workers discovered the remains of an 8,000 year old camel. A rare and impressive find to be sure.

PHOENIX, Arizona (AP) — Workers digging at the site of a future Wal-Mart store in suburban Mesa have unearthed the bones of a prehistoric camel that’s estimated to be about 10,000 years old.

Arizona State University geology museum curator Brad Archer hurried out to the site Friday when he got the news that the owner of a nursery was carefully excavating bones found at the bottom of a hole being dug for a new ornamental citrus tree.

“There’s no question that this is a camel; these creatures walked the land here until about 8,000 years ago, when the same event that wiped out a great deal of mammal life took place,” Archer told The Arizona Republic.

Wal-Mart officials and Greenfield Citrus Nursery owner John Babiarz have already agreed that the bones will go directly on display at ASU.

Archer said some of them may be placed on display very soon, but most will take several months “to get sorted out and stabilized.”

“In my 15 years at ASU doing this work I can think of six or seven times when finds this important have been made,” Archer said. “This is the first camel. Others have been horses, once a mammoth on Happy Valley Road. This sort of thing is extremely rare.” (source)

Am I the only one who wonders if Wal-Mart will allow the archaeologists to work peacefully? Someone I can’t help but pressure being placed to speed things up, no matter that the site itself holds the most information from which we can use to learn from.

Amazingly enough yesterday marked an eventful time for both of the Wal-Mart Supercenters in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Las Cruces PD were forced to evacuate both locations when a bomb threat was called in.

Dear Science Fiction Writers,

I’m sorry to inform you that one of your most favored “ideas” to use as a plot device is no longer available to you as it is now being manipulated by the scientists who dictate reality. Although you are certainly welcome to continue utilizing it you must be aware that continued usage of this device will move your fantastic tales of fiction to the realm of non-fiction. I am of course talking about that infamous monkey wrench you love to toss into the gears of your protagonists, the manipulation of his memories.Hence forth, should you decide that your hero (or one of the supporting cast members) is to be captured by the evil vilian and their memory should be augmented, either by chemical or mechanical means, this scenario is no longer available as oh wow imagine if they really could concept, it is now fact.

Script and storyline writers for Days of Our Lives, Dark Angel, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon (Sailor Moon), Kidou Senshi Gundam Seed Destiny (Gundam Seed Destiny) and so forth should also take note. I’m afraid your ever predictable and re-occurring vilianous erasing of memories is no longer “far out”. Though let’s be honest, it was becoming a bit too cliche and predictable anyway. Reality fans can now rejoice! That annoying plot device has now been moved to your realm of perception.

I understand that this message may be alarming, however, there is nothing wrong with your computer screen. Do not attempt to adjust your computer screen’s settings We now control the horizontal and the vertical. We can deluge you with a thousand painful memories or expand one single memory to crystal clarity - and beyond. We can shape your vision to anything our imagination can conceive or we can erase it. From now on we will control all that you see, hear, and remember. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the deepest inner mind to… Reality.

To understand read this article . This raises an alarming amount of ethical questions. What right do we have, as human beings, to arbitrarily remove the memories of others? How can we be certain that this new methodology will not be used against us? Hence forth, how will anyone be 100% sure that the memories they hold are true?