M.J. Rose

Chickens with dino snouts. What will they think of next?

Chicken Grows Face of Dinosaur

by Melissa Hogenboom (Earth Blog – BBC)

A chicken embryo with a dinosaur-like snout instead of a beak has been developed by scientists

“Sixty-five million years ago, an asteroid is believed to have crashed into Earth. The impact wiped out huge numbers of species, including almost all of the dinosaurs.

One group of dinosaurs managed to survive the disaster. Today, we know them as birds.

The idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs has been around since the 19th century, when scientists discovered the fossil of an early bird called Archaeopteryx. It had wings and feathers, but it also looked a lot like a dinosaur. More recent fossils look similar.

But these early birds didn’t look the same as modern ones. In particular, they didn’t have beaks: they had snouts, like those of their dinosaur ancestors.

To understand how one changed into another, a team has been tampering with the molecular processes that make up a beak in chickens…”

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We have a close friend who experienced an NDE — his account is so sincere and so vivid, there is no doubt in our minds that this phenomenon exists…

First hint of ‘life after death’ in biggest ever scientific study

By Sarah Knapton, Science Correspondent

Southampton University scientists have found evidence that awareness can continue for at least several minutes after clinical death which was previously thought impossible

“Death is a depressingly inevitable consequence of life, but now scientists believe they may have found some light at the end of the tunnel.

The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.

It is a controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread scepticism.

But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.

And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted…”

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We love her, but do we know her?

The Mysterious Disappearance of Nefertiti, Ruler of the Nile

by April Holloway (Ancient Origins)

“The Mysterious Disappearance of Nefertiti, Ruler of the Nile
Nefertiti was the chief consort of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten (formerly Amenhotep IV), who reigned from approximately 1353 to 1336 BC.  Known as the Ruler of the Nile and Daughter of Gods, Nefertiti acquired unprecedented power, and is believed to have held equal status to the pharaoh himself.  However, much controversy lingers about Nefertiti after the twelfth regal year of Akhenaten, when her name vanishes from the pages of history.

In Akhenaten’s new state religion centred on the sun god, he and Nefertiti were depicted as the primeval first couple. Nefertiti was also known throughout Egypt for her beauty. She was said to be proud of her long, swan-like neck and invented her own makeup using the Galena plant. She also shares her name with a type of elongated gold bead, called nefer, that she was often portrayed as wearing.

Long forgotten to history, Nefertiti was made famous when her bust was discovered in the ruins of an artist’s shop in Amarna in 1912, now in Berlin’s Altes Museum. The bust is one of the most copied works of ancient Egypt…”

Read the rest here.