First from ScienceDaily:
Big Bang In Antarctica: Killer Crater Found Under Ice
Planetary scientists have found evidence of a meteor impact much larger and earlier than the one that killed the dinosaurs — an impact that they believe caused the biggest mass extinction in Earth’s history.
The 300-mile-wide crater lies hidden more than a mile beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. And the gravity measurements that reveal its existence suggest that it could date back about 250 million years — the time of the Permian-Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out.
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The Wilkes Land crater is more than twice the size of the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula, which marks the impact that may have ultimately killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. The Chicxulub meteor is thought to have been 6 miles wide, while the Wilkes Land meteor could have been up to 30 miles wide — four or five times wider.
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Then from WiredNews:
Scroll May Hold Religious Insight
ATHENS, Greece — A collection of charred scraps kept in a Greek museum’s storerooms are all that remains of what archaeologists say is Europe’s oldest surviving book — which may hold a key to understanding early monotheistic beliefs.
More than four decades after the Derveni papyrus was found in a 2,400-year-old nobleman’s grave in northern Greece, researchers said Thursday they are close to uncovering new text — through high-tech digital analysis — from the blackened fragments left after the manuscript was burnt on its owner’s funeral pyre.
Large sections of the mid-4th century B.C. book — a philosophical treatise on ancient religion — were read years ago, but never officially published.
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“I believe some 10 to 20 percent of new text will be added, which however will be of crucial importance,” said Veleni, director of the Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum, where the manuscript is kept.
“This will fill in many gaps, we will get a better understanding of the sequence and the existing text will become more complete,” Veleni told The Associated Press.
The scroll, originally several yards of papyrus rolled around two wooden runners, was found half-burnt in 1962. It dates to around 340 B.C., during the reign of Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.