Is the demand for entertaining science programs interfering with “the slow, rigorous nature of the scientific process?” Nature investigates this question, using the recent article by media-savvy palaeoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of Witwatersrand as an example.

A task force of Alpine mountain climbers, archaeologists, and anthropologists has been assembled to rescue the artifacts that appear as the glaciers recede. Oetzi the Iceman is the most famous discovery, but recent finds include the bodies of Austro-Hungarian soldiers killed in 1918.  

Anthropologist Robert McCarthy of Florida Atlantic University thinks he has replicated how a Neanderthal would say an “e” sound. Follow the link at the bottom of this article to hear the computer-generated utterance.  

A cave on the Philippine island of Mindanao that once held bones and anthropomorphic burial jars is now being guarded by soldiers of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. When scientists from the National Museum arrived, they found that the bones had been stolen and the pots were broken.  

Fabrics from a fifth-century Maya tomb in Copán have been analyzed by Margaret Ordoñez of the University of Rhode Island. “What was most amazing was that there were as many as 25 layers of fabrics on an offertory platform and covering pottery in the tomb, and they all had a different fabric structure, color, and yarn size, so it’s likely that the tomb was reopened–perhaps several times–and additional layers of textiles were laid there years after her death,” she said.   

Renovations have begun at the synagogue within Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary, visited by nearly 200,000 people last year. The prison opened in 1829 and closed in 1971; the synagogue was added in the 1920s.

Representative Juan Zapata wants to sell off Florida’s Spanish treasure to raise cash for the state budget. He thought the state owned artifacts from the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, but it doesn’t, and state officials didn’t offer to tell him what Florida does own. “These are tough times, but we don’t sell treasure as a Florida family. We don’t sell the family Bible or grandmother’s china,” explained Ryan Wheeler, chief of archaeological research.

A new book supports the theory that substandard rivets were used in the construction of Titanic. The researchers found evidence of problems in the archives of Harland and Wolff, the company that built Titanic, Olympic, and Britannic all at once, and they examined rivets from the wreckage of the ship.  

Concerned citizen Mitch Cole of Utah found evidence of illegal digging at a rock art site and did something about it.  

Bradley T. Lepper turns the spotlight on forensic archaeology in his column for The Columbus Dispatch.  

Pictures of the gold coins bearing the image of the Roman Emperor Valens have been published. The coins were discovered at a monastery site in Sinai.