Come on, cryptoarchaeology is fun! The tomb of St. Paul has been unearthed (possibly), and it’s right where everyone thought it would be. Australian researchers, however, found a hidden tomb by accident, discovering the best 26th Dynasty find to date off of the main chamber of another well-known tomb that they were investigating. (Which reminds me of a slew of Starbucks jokes, like The Onion article “New Starbucks opens in restroom of existing Starbucks” and the bit in Shrek 2 where a mob flees from one coffee store to another coffee store of the same name across the street, but I digress…)

Not all secret tombs are found by accident, however, so it’s good to know that someone had the good sense to try to use inexplicable cosmic rays to find hidden Mayan burial chambers.

The BBC has a report of 10,000 year-old cave paintings that were discovered in North Somerset.

This is interesting in and of itself, but I’ll risk displaying some zoological ignorance and ask: there were bison in the prehistoric UK?

No, I haven’t seen National Treasure, but if you browse our archives you know we have an interest in what some might call the archaeology of unusual histories.

A British archaeologist claims to have found definitive proof of John the Baptist’s existence, although his colleagues remain skeptical.

Grail hunters will be somewhat disappointed to learn that Bletchley Park, the codebreakers who cracked the Enigma code in WWII, have come to a conclusion that the encoded inscription on the Shepherd’s Monument is not a Templar message regarding the location of the Holy Grail, but instead a defiant statement from the Priory of Sion, a sect which did not believe in Jesus’ divine parentage.

If you’re interested in that sort of thing, then both articles are worth a quick read.

Wired reports a new approach to the classic math/logic/philosophy problem known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma which was successful enough to win a competition that’s long been dominated by another approach.

The BBC has an interesting article about how the Ansari X-Prize - recently given out for the development of a privately owned, reusable spacecraft - concept could be used to spur activity in other areas where scientific or technological breakthroughs are sought.

Anything helps, I suppose, but incenting researchers to find, say, a cure for cancer with prize money doesn’t seem like it would add significantly to the enormous amount of time and money that’s already spent pursuing that goal.

Found at Gravity Lens - the existence of a mutant with super-strength in Germany, and the genetic/biological basis for his “superpower”, which the article claims could provide a lot of insight into fighting muscle-wasting diseases like muscular dystrophy.

Although Desiree says she’d like to see a photo of the child, he’s well on his way to starting his superhero career by keeping his identity a secret. Plus, as any reader of the various X-Men comics knows, there are many intolerant people who fear and hate mutants, so it’s probably best for him to try to blend in and remain anonymous. [end of bad superhero jokes]

The BBC is running a report of the findings of Dr. Rainer Kuehne, a German archaeologist who has claimed to use satellite images to identify the location of the lost city of Atlantis - squarely in Spain’s Donana national park.

Other researchers are skeptical, saying that “one could interpret [the findings] in various ways” and that “several leaps of faith” are required to come to the conclusion that Dr. Kuehne has found Atlantis. If permission is granted by the Spanish government to conduct an excavation in the national park, then more definitive evidence can be gathered.

A Polish-Egyptian archaeology team claim to have found the Library of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Unfortunately, it does appear as though it was mostly destroyed before being lost to the sands (as predicted).

This is why anthropologists don’t like sociologists…

From No Doughnuts on Sunday:
A 1998 study by Purdue University sociologist Kenneth Ferraro concluded that church members were more likely to be overweight than other people.

Ferraro analyzed public records and surveys involving more than 3,600 people. Broken down by religious groups, Southern Baptists were heaviest, while Jews, Muslims and Buddhists were less likely to be overweight.

Soooo…..being a Southern Baptist, and therefore a church goer, means you’ll be heavier than people in other religions? Ok. So, we’re not going to bother factoring in the fact that Jews, Muslims and Buddhists go to temples on a regular basis? Oh, and we’re not going to consider the difference in the biological makeup of a southern American caucasian vs. asians or middle easterners? Or how southern American caucasians eat vs. asians or middle easterners?
Yes, I’m making generalizations that people who are Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim are mostly culturally different than your average Southern Baptist…but that’s certainly getting us closer to the truth than “you go to a Southern Baptist church, you’ll be fatter than someone who doesn’t.”

Ack! They call this a science?!

One of the most compelling reasons to continue space exploration - Mars once had enough water to support life.