Souces for Alternate Bibles and Christianities

http://forbiddengospels.blogspot.com/
http://www.hypotyposeis.org/weblog/
http://papyrology.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_Testament_papyri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine_papyri

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relics_attributed_to_Jesus

Mini-Stonehenge Found: Crematorium on Stonehenge Road?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091005-mini-stonehenge-bluestonehenge-bluehenge.html

Perhaps a prehistoric crematorium, 33-foot-wide (10-meter-wide) "Bluestonehenge" was discovered just over a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the original Stonehenge in Salisbury, United Kingdom, scientists announced today.
The 5,000-year-old ceremonial site is thought to have been a key stop along an ancient route between a land of the living, several miles away, and a domain of the dead—Stonehenge.
Named for the color of its long-gone stones, Bluestonehenge, or Bluehenge, was dismantled thousands of years ago, and many of its standing stones were integrated into Stonehenge during a rebuilding of the larger monument, according to the archaeologists.

30 Aristocrats

http://strolen.com/viewing/2977

30 Aristocrats

By: Ria Hawk

A list of thirty aristocrats, ready to be dropped in the king’s court, the ball, or what have you.

Eyeless Creature Discovered in Undersea Tunnel

A previously unknown species of an eyeless crustacean was discovered lurking inside a lava tube beneath the seafloor.
The creature, named Speleonectes atlantida, lives in the Tunnel de la Atlantida, the world's longest submarine lava tube on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands off the western coast of northern Africa. The discovery, which has implications for the evolution of an ancient group of crustaceans, will be detailed in September in a special issue of the journal Marine Biodiversity.
While in the cave, the international team of scientists and cave divers also discovered two previously unknown species of annelid worms.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20090825/sc_livescience/eyelesscreaturediscoveredinunderseatunnel

Both the creatures and the tubes under the sea are interesting from an RPG point of view.

Giant 'meat-eating' plant found

A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.

The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.

During the same expedition, botanists also came across strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms they could not identify.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8195000/8195029.stm

Two Worlds Collide in Deep Space

Two distant planets orbiting a young star apparently smashed into each other at high speeds thousands of years ago in a cosmic pileup of cataclysmic proportions, astronomers announced Monday.

Telltale plumes of vaporized rock and lava leftover from the collision revealed its existence to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, which picked up signatures from the impact in recent observations.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090810-planet-smash.html

Northwest dirt seeking giant worm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090711/ap_on_sc/us_giant_palouse_earthworm

MOSCOW, Idaho – The giant Palouse earthworm has taken on mythic qualities in this vast agricultural region that stretches from eastern Washington into the Idaho panhandle — its very name evoking the fictional sandworms from "Dune" or those vicious creatures from the movie "Tremors."

The worm is said to secrete a lily-like smell when handled, spit at predators, and live in burrows 15 feet deep. There have been only a handful of sightings.

But scientists hope to change that this summer with researchers scouring the Palouse region in hopes of finding more of the giant earthworms. Conservationists also want the Obama administration to protect the worm as an endangered species, even though little research has been done on it.

Converting Classic to GURPS Traveller Characters

http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/archive/GURPS/TravellerIII.txt
http://www.mu.org/~joe/traveller/archive/GURPS/TravellerI.txt
and don't forget the GURPS Traveller rules!

The first Europeans were cannibals: archaeologists

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090624/ts_afp/spainarchaeology

ATAPUERCA, Spain (AFP) – The remains of the "first Europeans" discovered at an archaeological site in northern Spain have revealed that these prehistoric men were cannibals who particularly liked the flesh of children.

"We know that they practiced cannibalism," said Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, one of the co-directors of the Atapuerca project, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A study of the remains revealed that they turned to cannibalism to feed themselves and not as part of a ritual, that they ate their rivals after killing them, mostly children and adolescents.

Die Roll Probabilities in Traveller

http://www.travellercentral.com/rules/dice.html

Erin's NPC Monikers data file

http://www.roleplayingtips.com/downloads/issue426_npc_monikers.zip

This is from Roleplaying Tips Weekly #426: 9 DM Tools

Erin Smale, designer of the Chimera RPG, sent me a data file
 for TableSmith to generate random NPC monikers and
 nicknames. TableSimth is free software for Windows, and it's
 one of my all time favourite DMing aides. If you haven't
 tried it and you run Windows, be sure to check it out.

PREHISTORIC ROCK CARVINGS NEAR HYDERABAD, INDIA

http://indculture0.tripod.com/prehist.htm

A prehistoric cult spot dating back to 'neolithic' times was discovered recently near Patancheru (80 km from Hyderabad) by the late Mr. Narahari of the state Archeology department. The archeologists examined the site which has some cave paintings in red ochre and rock carvings. The results of the trial excavations tentatively placed the site between the mesolithic and megalithic periods, that is the 'neolithic'. The site of Edithanur, Medak district, thus falls between 2300 BC and 900 BC. After this date "megalithic" culture makes its appearance in south india.

WOOTZ , UKKU or true damascus steel

http://indculture0.tripod.com/telingsteel.htm

Steel is a modified type of iron mixed with carbon and other elements which give it distinctive properties like hardness, toughness, resistance to rusting etc. The use of iron became fairly widespread after some of the old 'aryan' tribes like hittites developed the technology in the highlands of Iran-Iraq. The related megalithic culture in south India (found all over the drier parts of the plateau) also developed ironmaking skills. They seem to have gone a step further and developed STEEL. This steel making tradition has survived a long time in these parts and became world famous.

Megaliths of Hyderabad

http://indculture0.tripod.com/megalith.htm

All over Hyderabad and surounding areas there are prehistoric monuments ascribed to the megalithic peoples. They were skilled in handling large granite slabs mainly found in their tombs. The stone tombs are usually 3 metres underground and are marked on the surface by a circle of large rounded boulders. In Hyderabad area they are dated variously from 300 BC to 400 AD by archeologists, who say similar constructions in the sandstone area to the south date from 1300 BC.

Signature of the sky in rock

http://www.thehindu.com/2006/04/19/stories/2006041921290200.htm

HYDERABAD: An early representation of the Great Bear constellation dating back to around 500 B.C. has been discovered on a piece of rock at Mudumula village of Mahabubnagar district by the University of Hyderabad.

The University's History department dated the find to the megalithic period and suggested the sky map as being the earliest physical representation of the sky discovered in the country. "This probably could even be the earliest such representation in the entire South Asia," Reader in department of History K.P.Rao who led the team, claimed at a media conference here on Monday.

The representation of the group of stars was found on a square table-like rock with a flat slanting top. "This appears to have been deliberately planted by the megalithic people to plot the Great Bear constellation, also known as `Ursa Major' and referred to as `Saptarshi Mandala' in Indian astronomy," Dr.Rao said.

35000 year old statue

35000 year old statue, oldest know of an actual object (not abstract)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/obsessionwithnakedwomendatesback35000years;_ylt=AmuDPUsauQiGPOWCwcqNzBjlWMcF

MYSTERIOUS 'MONTAUK MONSTER' RETURNS

MYSTERIOUS 'MONTAUK MONSTER' RETURNS

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/AmazingAnimals/popup?id=2205608

Catalog of all Exoplanets

Catalog of all Exoplanets

http://www.planetary.org/exoplanets/

NASA Photos of Speceships

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA07923
Space ship near astroid
Artist's Concept of Deep Impact's Encounter with Comet Tempel 1

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA04604
Spaceship near comet
Deep Space 1 Using its Ion Engine (Artist's Concept)

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA09939
two groups of two stars with dust ring around one pair
Evidence for Strange Stellar Family (Artist Concept)

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA10075
big antena in orbit around red planet with grey planet in background
New Horizons at Pluto

Full Color Hemispheric View of Venus Centered at 180 Degrees East Longitude

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00159
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00158
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00157

Full color pictures of Venus.

The Crown of Tethys

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia08400.html

The crater (450 kilometers or 280 miles across) is a remarkably well-preserved example of an ancient multi-ringed impact basin: The outer ring is defined by steep, cliff-like walls that descend to generally broad internal terraces. The inner ring is formed by a prominent, crown-shaped, 140-kilometer (88-mile) diameter circular band of icy mountains. Multi-ring basins are seen on rocky bodies as well as icy ones.

First Sign of Chocolate in Ancient U.S. Found

http://www.livescience.com/history/090202-earliest-chocolate.html

The residues, found on pottery shards excavated from a large pueblo (called Pueblo Bonito) in Chaco Canyon in northwestern New Mexico, suggest the practice of drinking chocolate had traveled from what is now Mexico to the American Southwest by about 1,000 years ago.

Now, researchers think a similar ritual may have taken place in villages in Chaco Canyon. Patricia Crown of the University of New Mexico and Jeffrey Hurst of the Hershey Center for Health and Nutrition found traces of theobromine, which is in the Theobroma cacao plant that bears beans from which chocolate is made, on the shards. (The Hershey Center was established by the Hershey Company in 2006.)

Since the cacao plant is tropical and can't be grown in New Mexico and other places in the United States, the researchers think the chocolate beans came from Mesoamerica, with the closest source being about 1,240 miles (2,000 km) away from the Chaco site.

Natural disasters doomed early civilization

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090119/ap_on_sc/sci_ancient_calamity/print

They found that a massive earthquake, or series of quakes, struck the seismically active region, collapsing walls and floors and launching landslides from barren mountain ranges surrounding the valley.
In addition, layers of silt indicate massive flooding followed.
Then came El Nino, a periodic change in the winds and currents in the Pacific Ocean, which brought heavy rains that damaged irrigation systems and washed debris into the streams and down to the ocean, where the sand and silt settled into a large ridge, sealing off the previously rich coastal bays.

Paper Details Sites on Mars With Plumes Of Methane

Paper Details Sites on Mars With Plumes Of Methane

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/16/science/space/16mars.html?ref=us

When the presence of methane was reported in 2004 by three teams of scientists, the findings generated surprise and skepticism because only a few explanations seemed to be plausible.

One was geothermal chemical reactions involving water and heat in volcanoes or underground hot springs. But evidence for recent volcanism on Mars is scarce. Also, volcanoes would be expected to spew other gases like sulfur dioxide, and those are not plentiful in the planet’s atmosphere.

A second possibility is biological. On Earth, a class of bacteria known as methanogens breathes out methane as a waste product.