Cool!

And that isn't a reference to the permafrost where the mummy was found.

The spectacular find of the frozen remains of a Scythian warrior in Mongolia by an international team of archeologists could shed new light on ancient life. Some of those findings will be the subject of a major exhibition in Berlin next year.

Scientists in Berlin this week gave their first major press conference about the spectacular discovery of a frozen mummy in Mongolia's Altai mountains. The frozen corpse, embedded in permafrost, is considered one of the greatest archeological finds since climbers came across the mummified remains of Ötzi, the ice man, in an alpine glacier. The corpse of the Scythian warrior could help provide clues about how people lived 2,500 years ago and about what illnesses they suffered.

"The mummy is unbelievably valuable to science," Hermann Parzinger, president of the German Archeological Institute (DAI), said on Thursday in Berlin. He described the mummy recently discovered in Mongolia as a "one of a kind find" that could increase our knowledge about the nutrition and health of early man.

The mummy, which is believed to be about 2,500 years old was a 30-to-40 year-old man with blond hair, and was found in very good condition, Patzinger said. It's too delicate for exhibition, but new techniques developed following other recent discoveries of frozen mummies will enable scientists to study the remains in detail. The newly discovered Altai mummy has been compared to the discovery of Ötzi in southern Tyrol in 1991 and a tattooed Siberian ice princess in 1993.

Wikipedia has a good article on Scythia and the Scythians, if you want more information on these fierce warriors.

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Does this picture not break your heart?

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A fire gutted a 19th century cathedral in the heart of Russia's second city on Friday, destroying its famous azure domes which attract thousands of tourists every year.

As flames leapt from the main dome of the Troitsky (Trinity) Cathedral -- one of the largest wooden domes in Europe -- passers-by helped to rescue priceless artefacts from its renowned art and religious icon collection.

"The fire services don't have long enough ladders to reach the top of the dome. They have been aiming their water guns at the middle section," Reuters photographer Alexander Demyanchuk said by telephone from outside the cathedral.

The cathedral had been covered by wooden scaffolding during reconstruction work when the fire started.

"The main dome has been destroyed but we could not stop the fire because it was so high and now other domes are in flames," a spokesman for Russia's emergencies ministry told Interfax news agency.

Emergency services said there had been no casualties.

The Troitsky Cathedral, built overlooking one of central St Petersburg's canals, is big enough to hold 3,000 worshippers and also housed the military uniforms of Russian 19th century tsars.

No word yet on the extent of the damage, or the loss of any of the important historical and religious items in the building.

UPDATE: It appears that most of the items of historical and religious significance have been saved.

The cause of the fire was not immediately known, but acting St. Petersburg emergency department chief Leonid Belyayev said the blaze apparently started on scaffolding on the outside of the church, which was undergoing restoration.

He said the most valuable icons and other items had been saved, and that structural damage beneath the roof area was minor.

The damage will be repaired.

The above picture sums up my feelings as well. My heart breaks for the people of St. Petersburg.

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Imagine herds of mammoth wandering the tundra – it could happen, maybe even in our lifetimes.

BODIES of extinct Ice Age mammals, such as woolly mammoths, that have been frozen in permafrost for thousands of years may contain viable sperm that could be used to bring them back from the dead, scientists said yesterday.

Research has indicated that mammalian sperm can survive being frozen for much longer than was previously thought, suggesting that it could potentially be recovered from species that have died out.

Several well-preserved mammoth carcasses have been found in the permafrost of Siberia, and scientists estimate that there could be millions more.

Last year a Canadian team demonstrated that it was possible to extract DNA from the specimens, and announced the sequencing of about 1 per cent of the genome of a mammoth that died about 27,000 years ago.

With access to the mammothÂ’s genetic code, and with frozen sperm recovered from testes, it may be possible to resurrect an animal that is very similar to a mammoth.

The mammoth is a close genetic cousin of the modern Asian elephant, and scientists think that the two may be capable of interbreeding.

Why do I have visions of Fred Flintstone and a big plate of mammoth ribs?

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One of the most important pieces of space history has been misplaced in NASA's archives.

The government has misplaced the original recording of the first moon landing, including astronaut Neil Armstrong's famous "one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," a NASA spokesman said yesterday.

Armstrong's moon walk, seen by millions of television viewers on July 20, 1969, is among the transmissions that NASA has failed to turn up in a year of searching, spokesman Grey Hautaloma said.

"We haven't seen them for quite a while. We've been looking for over a year, and they haven't turned up," Hautaloma said.

The tapes also contain data about the health of the astronauts and the condition of the spacecraft. In all, about 700 boxes of transmissions from the Apollo lunar missions are missing, he said.

"I wouldn't say we're worried -- we've got all the data. Everything on the tapes we have in one form or another," Hautaloma said.

NASA has retained copies of the TV broadcasts and offers several clips on its Web site. But those images are of lower quality than the originals stored on the missing magnetic tapes.

Because NASA's equipment was not compatible with the TV technology of the day, the original transmissions had to be displayed on a monitor and reshot by a TV camera for broadcast.

Hautaloma said it is possible the tapes will be unplayable if they are found because they have degraded significantly over the years -- a problem common to magnetic tape and other recordable media.

This will be a tragic loss if the materials are lost or damaged beyond recovery.

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Listening to these folks, you would think acting to end WWII was a bad thing.

Tens of thousands of people from around the world gathered in Hiroshima on Sunday to pray for peace and urge the world to abandon nuclear weapons on the 61st anniversary of the first atomic bombing.

In an annual ritual to mourn the more than 220,000 people who ultimately died from the blast, a crowd including survivors, children and dignitaries gathered at the Peace Memorial Park, near ground zero where the bomb was dropped.

"Radiation, heat, blast and their synergetic effects created a hell on Earth," said Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba.

Remember -- the planned invasion of the home islands was expected to cost the US military over one million dead soldiers, sailors, and airmen. The Japanese death toll was expected to be higher, incuding the civilian dead (the Bushido code required suicide rather than capture or surrender).

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