Ancient fortress in Siberia

Deep inside Siberia there is a lake, one of thousands others. And in the middle of this lake there is a small island. And on this island people have found an ancient fortress, which is dated more than 1500 years old.
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UFO sightings bring town to a standstill

A crowd of 100 stunned stargazers brought a town centre to a standstill when five mysterious UFOs were spotted hovering in the sky.

Drinkers spilled out of pubs, motorists stopped to gawp and camera phones were aimed upwards as the five orbs, in a seeming formation, hovered above Stratford-Upon-Avon for half an hour.

The unidentified flying objects lit up the otherwise clear night sky above Shakespeare's birthplace in Warwickshire on Saturday.

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Blame that bad back on your ancestors

A spine specialist trying to figure out why people so often have bad backs says he has come up with a new theory about when and how early humans evolved the ability to walk upright.

The uncannily human-looking backbone of a 21 million-year-old precursor of humans and apes gives the first clue, said Dr. Aaron Filler of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

A major change in the vertebrae that allowed this pre-human to stand upright and carry things also made it easier to crush and strain the spongy discs between each vertebra, Filler, a medical doctor with a doctorate in anthropology proposes.

That, in turn, explains why back pain is a leading cause of disability, he said.

Laser mapping tool traces ancient sites

A great use of modern techniques to preserve decaying monuments over at www.cyark.org.

...Kacyra developed this laser-mapping tool several years ago to solve a problem in construction -- keeping accurate records of the real dimensions of factories and power plants when they deviate from the architect's plans.

The 67-year-old sold his invention in 2001 and now works with his wife, Barbara, to get the $100,000 tool into the hands of archaeological researchers who are using it to create electronic blueprints so accurate that scientists sitting at computer terminals can glean the secrets of ancient monuments remotely.

"We both loved the ancient-built environment and we wanted to put high technology to use saving ancient places," Kacyra said.

Today the Kacyras have created a Web site, at www.cyark.org, that allows anyone to see these blueprintlike images. But that's just the start. Down the line they would like to superimpose real graphics on top of these geospatial maps -- recreating ancient worlds onscreen.