A new study of Tanzania’s 3.6 million-year-old Laetoli footprints suggests that the human ancestor Australopithecus afarensis likely walked with a comfortable, upright gait. “To our surprise, the Laetoli footprints fall completely within the range of normal human footprints,” said David Raichen of the University of Arizona.

Defendants in the Four Corners federal artifacts-trafficking sting will reportedly challenge the videos recorded by undercover informant Ted Gardner, who died on March 1, arguing that they have a constitutional right to confront their accuser. “The jury really needs to see the witness on the stand to assess reliability,” explained Kent Hart, executive director of the Utah Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, who is not involved in the case. Artifacts collected during the searches of defendants’ homes will also serve as evidence against them, however.   

At Gab Gab Beach, located on a restricted naval base on the west coast of Guam, archaeologists found the burial of a child thought to date to 800 to 1500 A.D.  

There’s more information and a video news story on the arrest of three men for looting a Chumash burial site in California at ABC News, Los Angeles.   

More than 200 documents relating to the daily life of the guards at the Auschwitz concentration camp have been discovered in the attic of a nearby house.  

A fragment of the Parthenon frieze has traveled from Athens to Sicily, where it has been on exhibit for 100 years. Palermo’s National Museum loaned the sculpture to Acropolis Museum for display.  

Onions make people cry because they contain chemicals that have irritated sensors in animal bodies for 500 million years, helping them to avoid potentially toxic food and other dangers.  

Australian researchers have developed a way to carbon-date wine, in order to protect consumers from “vintage fraud.”

This entry was posted by Jessica E. Saraceni on Monday, March 22, 2010. Discussion of this blog entry is now closed.

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