Scientists Discovered the Egyptian Secret to Moving Huge Pyramid Stones

Scientists Discovered the Egyptian Secret to Moving Huge Pyramid Stones - The question of just how an ancient civilization—without the help of modern technology—moved the 2.5 ton stones that made up their famed pyramids has long plagued Egyptologists and mechanical engineers alike. But now, a team from the University of Amsterdam believes they've figured it out, even though the solution was staring them in the face all along.

It all comes down to friction. See, the ancient Egyptians would transport their rocky cargo across the desert sands, from quarry to monument site with large sleds. Pretty basic sleds, basically just large slabs with upturned edges. Now, when you try to pull a large slab with upturned edges carrying a 2.5 ton load, it tends to dig into the sand ahead of it, building up a sand berm that must then be regularly cleared before it can become an even bigger obstacle. 

Wet sand, however, doesn't do this. In sand with just the right amount of dampness, capillary bridges—essentially microdroplets of water that bind grains of sand to one another through capillary action—form across the grains, which doubles the material's relative stiffness. This prevents the sand from berming in front of the sled and cuts the force required to drag the sled in half. In half. 

As a UvA press release explains,

The physicists placed a laboratory version of the Egyptian sledge in a tray of sand. They determined both the required pulling force and the stiffness of the sand as a function of the quantity of water in the sand. To determine the stiffness they used a rheometer, which shows how much force is needed to deform a certain volume of sand.

Experiments revealed that the required pulling force decreased proportional to the stiffness of the sand...A sledge glides far more easily over firm desert sand simply because the sand does not pile up in front of the sledge as it does in the case of dry sand.

These experiments served to confirm what the Egyptians clearly already knew, and what we probably already should have. Artwork within the tomb of Djehutihotep, which was discovered in the Victorian Era, depicts a scene of slaves hauling a colossal statue of the Middle Kingdom ruler and in it, a guy at the front of the sled is shown pouring liquid into the sand. You can see it in the image above, just to the right of the statue's foot.

We can now finally put this scientific snipe hunt to rest and focus on how the hell Stonehenge got that way. [ Gizmodo en Español ]

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Mystery behind construction of ancient pyramids

Mystery behind construction of ancient pyramids - Solved! How Ancient Egyptians Moved Massive Pyramid Stones - The ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids may have been able to move massive stone blocks across the desert by wetting the sand in front of a contraption built to pull the heavy objects, according to a new study.

Physicists at the University of Amsterdam investigated the forces needed to pull weighty objects on a giant sled over desert sand, and discovered that dampening the sand in front of the primitive device reduces friction on the sled, making it easier to operate. The findings help answer one of the most enduring historical mysteries: how the Egyptians were able to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of constructing the famous pyramids.

A man makes his camel sit at the historical site of the Giza Pyramids near Cairo, Egypt, on Friday, Dec. 13, 2013. Tourism in Egypt has dropped following unrest surrounding the July 3 popularly backed military coup that ousted President Mohammed Morsi. (AP Photo/Jon Gambrell)             

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A large pile of sand accumulates in front of the sled when it is pulled over dry sand (left). On the wet sand (right) this does not happen.

The ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids may have been able to move massive stone blocks across the desert by wetting the sand in front of a contraption built to pull the heavy objects, according to a new study.

Physicists at the University of Amsterdam investigated the forces needed to pull weighty objects on a giant sled over desert sand, and discovered that dampening the sand in front of the primitive device reduces friction on the sled, making it easier to operate. The findings help answer one of the most enduring historical mysteries: how the Egyptians were able to accomplish the seemingly impossible task of constructing the famous pyramids.

To make their discovery, the researchers picked up on clues from the ancient Egyptians themselves. A wall painting discovered in the ancient tomb of Djehutihotep, which dates back to about 1900 B.C., depicts 172 men hauling an immense statue using ropes attached to a sledge. In the drawing, a person can be seen standing on the front of the sledge, pouring water over the sand, said study lead author Daniel Bonn, a physics professor at the University of Amsterdam. 

"Egyptologists thought it was a purely ceremonial act," Bonn told Live Science. "The question was: Why did they do it?"

Bonn and his colleagues constructed miniature sleds and experimented with pulling heavy objects through trays of sand.

When the researchers dragged the sleds over dry sand, they noticed clumps would build up in front of the contraptions, requiring more force to pull them across.

Adding water to the sand, however, increased its stiffness, and the sleds were able to glide more easily across the surface. This is because droplets of water create bridges between the grains of sand, which helps them stick together, the scientists said. It is also the same reason why using wet sand to build a sandcastle is easier than using dry sand, Bonn said.

But, there is a delicate balance, the researchers found.

"If you use dry sand, it won't work as well, but if the sand is too wet, it won't work either," Bonn said. "There's an optimum stiffness."

The amount of water necessary depends on the type of sand, he added, but typically the optimal amount falls between 2 percent and 5 percent of the volume of sand.

"It turns out that wetting Egyptian deserts and can reduce the friction by quite a bit, which implies you need only half of the people to pull a sledge on wet sand, compared to dry sand," Bonn said.

The study, published April 29 in the journal Physical Review Letters, may explain how the ancient Egyptians constructed the pyramids, but the research also has modern-day applications, the scientists said. The findings could help researchers understand the behavior of other granular materials, such as asphalt, concrete or coal, which could lead to more efficient ways to transport these resources. ( Live Science )

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First map produced of universe 11 billion years ago

First map produced of universe 11 billion years ago - An international team of astronomers has produced the first map of the universe as it was 11 billion years ago, filling a gap between the Big Bang and the rapid expansion that followed.

The study, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, shows the universe went through a phase roughly three billion years after the Big Bang when expansion actually started to slow, before the force of so-called 'dark energy' kicked in and sent galaxies accelerating away from each other.

Much is known about the immediate aftermath of the Big Bang from studies of its afterglow in the cosmic background radiation, and its accelerating expansion over several billion years can be seen with a look at the way distant galaxies are moving.

 

Reuters/Reuters - An illustration showing how SDSS-III was able to measure the distant universe. Light rays from distant quasars (dots at left) are partially absorbed as they pass through clouds of intergalactic hydrogen gas (centrE). CREDIT: Zosia Rostomian, LBNL; Nic Ross, BOSS Lyman-alpha team, LBNL; and Springel et al, Virgo Consortium and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics

"Only now are we finally seeing its adolescence... just before it underwent a growth spurt," said Mat Pieri at the University of Portsmouth in Britain, one of the authors of the study.

Little is known about dark energy, and its counterpart dark matter, but astronomers argue the force must exist to account for the speed at which the universe is expanding. Together, dark energy and dark matter are believed to make up about 96 percent of the universe.

The new study supports the theory that dark energy was somehow created as the universe expanded, by detailing a period when gravity was winning the tussle and slowing the expansion.

"If we think of the universe as a roller coaster, then today we are rushing downhill, gaining speed as we go," said Pieri. "Our new measurement tells us about the time when the universe was climbing the hill - still being slowed by gravity."

The map, the work of 63 scientists from nine countries, was compiled using a novel technique for studying the intense light from 50,000 distant quasars as it passes through clouds of hydrogen in space on its way to Earth.

They produce a picture of the ancient universe in same way thousands of flashlight beams would light up a bank of fog.

"The quasars are back-lights," Pieri told Reuters, and the way the gas in front of them absorbs some of the light allows astronomers to get a detailed picture of these distant clouds of gas known as the intergalactic medium.

The study is the first fruit from a five-year project started in 2009. The team, from the third Sloan Digital Sky Survey, expect to expand the survey with light from about 160,000 quasars by the end of the project.

"We're essentially measuring the shadows cast by gas along a series of lines, each billions of light-years long," said Will Percival, a cosmology professor the University of Portsmouth.

"The tricky part is combining all those one-dimensional maps. The problem is like trying to recognize an object from a picture that's been painted on the quills of a porcupine," he said. ( Reuters )

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Bigfoot Research Gets Lift from Stealth Airship

Bigfoot Research Gets Lift from Stealth Airship - Past expeditions to find conclusive evidence for the existence of Bigfoot have at least two things in common: They were unsuccessful, and they were ground-based.

That's why the Falcon Project will make history regardless of whether it achieves its goal of capturing "clear, steady film evidence of a Hominoid in its natural habitat."

Using a 45-foot-long (14 meters), camera-mounted, remote-controlled airship, project founder William Barnes plans to work with a team that includes one scientist to conduct nighttime flyovers of reported Bigfoot hotspots around the United States.

Barnes, a gold dredger whose current endeavor was inspired by an alleged encounter with a Bigfoot-like creature he claims to have had in 1997, thinks the helium-filled craft will allow his team to succeed where others have failed due to its unprecedented advantages in two key areas: stealth and maneuverability.

The camera aboard the craft can film in infrared, thermal imaging and high definition. And as the ship scans densely wooded regions from a penetrating vantage, it will never spook a potential subject with a broken twig or run out of breath in a one-sided foot race, Barnes believes.

Thanks to its gyroscopically stabilized housing, the ship's camera is protected against a common shortcoming of purported video footage of quasi-mythical creatures: a suspiciously shaky image.

While there has never been any definitive evidence suggesting that giant bipedal apes roam the wilds of North America largely undetected, the Falcon Project does have a bona fide scientist as its principal investigator.

Jeff Meldrum, a professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, is the rare academic who entertains and actively investigates the possibility that Bigfoot, or something like it, exists.

"Even if definitive DNA sequence data point to the existence of a novel species, it will not suddenly become easy to study such a rare and elusive primate in the field. That's where the Falcon Project comes in," said Meldrum.

In 2011, Meldrum was invited to take part in a high-profile Russian expedition to find that country's brand of unverified wildman, the yeti. The expedition garnered international attention when researchers claimed to have found "indisputable proof" of the yeti, but Meldrum concluded the entire expedition seemed to be an orchestrated publicity stunt, with all of the supposed evidence planted in advance, according to AOL.com.

The Falcon Project's custom-built airship, called the Aurora Mk II, is being constructed by Canada-based Remote Aerial Tripods Inc., and is expected to be completed in the spring, according to tech website Gizmag.

Meldrum gives more credibility to Bigfoot's existence than most scientists, but a 2012 public opinion poll found that about a third of Americans believe the creature is probably real. ( LiveScience.com )

READ MORE - Bigfoot Research Gets Lift from Stealth Airship

Bigfoot Vandalizes a Winnebago and Other Questionable Claims

Bigfoot Vandalizes a Winnebago and Other Questionable Claims - A Pennsylvania man who accused Bigfoot of vandalizing his 1973 Winnebago earlier this month is just one of a long history of people who have blamed the hairy humanoid for attacking personal property and dwellings.

John Reed, a Bigfoot enthusiast, claims that during a camping trip he and his girlfriend saw a tall, dark, hairy figure walk past their camper window at night. According to one news story, Reed said the Bigfoot "threw rocks at his mobile home's outside light to escape discovery."

 

An artist's interpretation of Bigfoot.

This explanation doesn't make sense; if the Bigfoot didn't want to be noticed, it presumably wouldn't have walked right past the Winnebago's window with two people inside, nor thrown rocks at the camper. The creature could simply have avoided the campsite, or kept walking into the darkness if it did not want to be detected, instead of standing and throwing rocks at an exterior light.

Perhaps the strangest part of the story is that Reed, who founded a Bigfoot hunting group and claims to have seen it twice before, did not photograph the creature.

Reed is not alone

As odd as this story seems, Reed is not the first to claim to find traces and evidence of what they assume must have been a Bigfoot, though not clearly seeing or photographing it at the time. The logic goes like this: I don't know what else it might have been, so it must have been Bigfoot.

It is well known that wild animals attack vehicles such as car and RVs — especially if they can smell food inside. And many animals, including bears and raccoons, can be very clever and persistent in trying to get into vehicles and other containers. Trashcans in national parks have specially designed latching mechanisms to thwart feral intruders.

There have been other cases where unknown creatures attack vehicles, though those attacks have typically occurred at night and/or while the occupants were away. Strangely, Bigfoot are never credibly accused of attacking people; just about every other animal in the world has been known to attack humans at some point, including cats, dogs, deer, moose, bear, boar, elk, cougar, birds, fish, and so on. Not so for Bigfoot — a fact that raises suspicion among many skeptics.

Bigfoot have been claimed to vandalize not only dwellings but also trees. In October 2011, Bigfoot researcher and biologist John Bindernagel visited western Siberia to examine evidence of the Yeti (the Russian version of Bigfoot). He claimed to have found evidence that the creature broke trees and branches. "Twisted trees like this have also been observed in North America and they could fit with the theory that Bigfoot makes nests," Bindernagelsaid in an interview with the British tabloid "The Sun."

In another mysterious incident that some attribute to Bigfoot or another unknown creature, in 2008 a South Carolina couple claimed that something vandalized their vehicle, leaving mysterious bite marks and ripping out part of the fender on their 2002 Dodge Grand Caravan.

Famous 1924 Bigfoot Attack

The most famous case of a Bigfoot attack allegedly occurred at a place called Ape Canyon, near Mount St. Helens, Washington. In 1924, a group of five miners working at the site were besieged by a group of "ape men." One of the miners, a man named Fred Beck, claimed that they sighted a group of Bigfoot high above them on the edge of the canyon. The miners then spent a terrified night holed up in their cabin, during which the Bigfoot bombarded the cabin with rocks, and, they claimed, even tried to break the door in. The miners couldn't get a good look at the Bigfoot—partly because it was dark and partly because they could only see outside through small cracks in the door and walls.

The incident was cited for years in Bigfoot lore as a classic Bigfoot attack, and the details were exaggerated with each retelling. For example a few dozen fist-size rocks that rained down on the roof and walls became "giant boulders" in some versions of the story. Later research found that the famous Ape Canyon Bigfoot attack was not a hoax — but nor was it real: it was instead a combination of a prank and misperceptions.

It seems that the "Bigfoot" were local YMCA youth from nearby Spirit Lake, who had a long tradition of throwing stones (including pumice rocks, which can be deceptively light for their size) down into the canyon from above. The kids would not have known the miners were in the canyon, nor even that they were necessarily hitting a cabin in the darkness far below. When the miners looked up they would have only seen silhouettes of figures far above them. It must surely have been a terrifying experience for the miners, and it's easy to see how the Bigfoot story could have been spawned.

Could something similar explain the recent incident in Pennsylvania? Reed says he believes that the damage to his Winnebago wasn't caused by a group of pranking kids, though police think that's exactly what it was and are treating the case as ordinary vandalism. If Reed wants to file an insurance claim for the damages to his camper, he might want to go with that story. ( LiveScience.com )

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Mysterious Elk-Shaped Structure Discovered in Russia

Mysterious Elk-Shaped Structure Discovered in Russia - A huge geoglyph in the shape of an elk or deer discovered in Russia may predate Peru's famous Nazca Lines by thousands of years.

The animal-shaped stone structure, located near Lake Zjuratkul in the Ural Mountains, north of Kazakhstan, has an elongated muzzle, four legs and two antlers. A historical Google Earth satellite image from 2007 shows what may be a tail, but this is less clear in more recent imagery.

 

LiveScience.com/Image copyright 2012 Geoeye, copyright 2012 GIS Innovatsia, courtesy Google Earth. - A historical Google Earth image from 2007 showing the animal-shaped geoglyph in Russia, which may predate Peru's famous Nazca Lines.

Excluding the possible tail, the animal stretches for about 900 feet (275 meters) at its farthest points (northwest to southeast), the researchers estimate, equivalent to two American football fields. The figure faces north and would have been visible from a nearby ridge.

"The figure would initially have looked white and slightly shiny against the green grass background," write Stanislav Grigoriev, of the Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of History & Archaeology, and Nikolai Menshenin, of the State Centre for Monument Protection, in an article first detailing the discovery published last spring in the journal Antiquity. They note that it is now covered by a layer of soil.

Fieldwork carried out this past summer has shed more light on the glyph's composition and date, suggesting it may be the product of a "megalithic culture," researchers say. They note that hundreds of megalithic sites have been discovered in the Urals, with the most elaborate structures located on a freshwater island about 35 miles (60 km) northeast of the geoglyph.

Discovery & excavation

A man named Alexander Shestakov first discovered the glyphs using satellite images. He alerted researchers, who sent out a hydroplane and paraglider to survey the giant structure.

This has since progressed to an on-the-ground excavation by a team led by Grigoriev. They've found that the stone architecture of the geoglyph is quite elaborate. When they excavated part of a hind leg the largest stones were on the edges, the smaller ones inside. This past summer they also found the remains of passageways and what appear to be small walls on the hoof and muzzle of the animal.

"The hoof is made of small crushed stones and clay. It seems to me there were very low walls and narrow passages among them. The same situation in the area of a muzzle: crushed stones and clay, four small broad walls and three passages," Grigorievwrote in an email to LiveScience. He cautioned that his team didn't excavate all the way down to the bottom of the walls, not wishing to damage the geoglyph.

Dating the geoglyph

Among the finds from the excavations are about 40 stone tools, made of quartzite, found on the structure's surface. Most of them are pickaxe-like tools called mattocks, useful for digging and chopping. "Perhaps they were used to extract clay," he writes in the email.

The style of stone-working called lithic chipping used on one artifact dates it to the Neolithic and Eneolithic (sixth to third millennia B.C.), though Grigoriev says the technology is more typical of the Eneolithic, between the fourth and third millennia B.C.

If that date is correct, it would make the geoglyph far older than Peru's Nazca Lines, the very earliest of which were created around 500 B.C. Grigorievadded that current studies of ancient pollen at the site will help to narrow down the age.

In the Antiquity journal article, Grigoriev and Menshenin point out that palaeozoological studies show that the landscape in the southern Urals supported fewer trees in the Eneolithic, with forest growth not appearing until about 2,500 years ago. "This means that there were open landscapes in the Eneolithic and Bronze Age, which allowed the hill figure to be created," they write.

A megalithic culture

Researchers say this geoglyph may have been built by a "megalithic culture" in the region that created stone monuments in prehistoric times.

"[M]any megalithic sites with features in common with European megaliths have been located: Some 300 are known but have not yet been studied in detail," write Grigoriev and Menshenin in the Antiquity article. Among these megaliths are numerous "menhirs," large upright standing stones.

The most spectacular megalithic complexes are on the relatively small Vera Island, located on Turgoyak Lake, about 35 miles (60 km) northeast of the geoglyph.

Grigoriev and Julia Vasina of the South-Ural State University described the Vera Island megaliths in a 2010 article, noting the surviving portion of one monument, megalith two, as being covered by a mound and supporting a gallery and square chamber. Another monument, megalith one, is cut into the bedrock and covered by a mound consisting of stones, brown sand and lots of grass. It is more than 60 feet (19 meters) long and 20 feet (6 meters) wide. It contains three chambers one of which has "bas relief sculptures" in the shape of animals, probably a bull and wolf.

Stone tools and ceramics found at the megalithic sites date them to between the Eneolithic period and the early Iron Age, around 3,000 years ago. Researchers emphasize more dating work needs to be done to verify; however, if the evidence holds, the giant geoglyph, along with the megaliths, were constructed millennia before Peru's Nazca Lines, a testament to the building prowess of an ancient prehistoric culture in the Ural Mountains. ( LiveScience.com )

READ MORE - Mysterious Elk-Shaped Structure Discovered in Russia

Buddhist statue found by Nazis made from meteorite

Buddhist statue found by Nazis made from meteorite — An ancient Buddhist statue that a Nazi expedition brought back from Tibet shortly before World War II was carved from a meteorite that crashed on Earth thousands of years ago.

What sounds like an Indiana Jones movie plot appears to have actually taken place, according to European researchers publishing in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science this month.

 

The undated photo provided by University of Stuttgart shows an ancient Buddhist statue that a Nazi expedition brought back from Tibet shortly before World War II. The statue was carved from a meteorite which crashed on Earth thousands of years ago. What sounds like an Indiana Jones movie plot appears to have actually taken place, according to European researchers publishing in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science this month. Elmar Buchner of the University of Stuttgart, said Thursday Sept 27 2012 that the statue was brought to Germany by the Schaefer expedition. The Nazi-backed venture set out for Tibet in 1938 in part to trace the origins of the Aryan race _ a cornerstone of the Nazis' racist ideology. The existence of the statue _ known as "iron man" _ was only revealed in 2007 when its owner died and it came up for auction, Buchner told The Associated Press. (AP Photo/University of Stuttgart, Elmar Buchner)

Elmar Buchner of the University of Stuttgart said Thursday the statue was brought to Germany by the Schaefer expedition. The Nazi-backed venture set out for Tibet in 1938 in part to trace the origins of the Aryan race — a cornerstone of the Nazis' racist ideology.

The existence of the 10.6-kilogram (23.4-pound) statue, known as "iron man," was only revealed in 2007 when its owner died and it came up for auction, Buchner told The Associated Press.

German and Austrian scientists were able to get permission from its new owner, who wasn't disclosed, to conduct a chemical analysis that shows the statue came from the Chinga meteorite, which crashed in the area of what is now the Russian and Mongolian border around 15,000 years ago.

The meteorite was officially discovered in 1913, but Buchner said the statue could be 1,000 years old and represent a Buddhist god called Vaisravana.

The Nazis were probably attracted to it by a left-facing swastika symbol on its front. The swastika has been used by various cultures throughout the ages, but the Nazis tried to appropriate it as the symbol of their ideology, going so far as to put a right-facing version of it on their red and white flag.

Scientists not involved in the study told the AP that the research linking the statue to the meteorite was credible.

"Looks like a solid piece of geochemical 'forensic' work," said Qing-Zhu Yin, a researcher in geology at the University of California, Davis. "No terrestrial artifact would generally contain that much nickel content. Chemical elements don't lie."

Rhian Jones, an associate professor at the University of New Mexico who specializes in meteorites, said the claim appeared conclusive.

"There is a clear and convincing argument that the meteorite the statue is made from is the Chinga iron meteorite," she said.

But Yin cast doubt on the claim that the statue represented a Buddhist deity.

"I am not a historian. But the 'iron man' does not look like a Buddha to me from my cultural background," he said. "It looks more like a warrior with a sword ... (a) resemblance of Genghis Khan. ... I have never seen a Buddha with a sword or knife." ( Associated Press )

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Mystery Behind Deep-Sea Crop Circles off the Coast of Japan Solved

Mystery Behind Deep-Sea Crop Circles off the Coast of Japan Solved - More than 70 percent of Earth is covered in water, and the oceans remain some of the most mysterious parts of our world. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 95 percent of what lies underwater has not ever been seen by humans. NASA confirms that humans have better maps of the surface of Mars than of the bottom of the sea.

Earlier this year, off the southern coast of Japan, Yoji Ookata, a deep-sea photographer and diver who has been documenting the deep sea for more than 50 years, saw something he had never observed before. A circular pattern of rippling sand about 80 feet below sea level and 6 feet in diameter was on the ocean floor. Ookata returned to the same spot with a TV camera crew in tow to capture the discovery and figure out who or what had created its intricate design.

Ookata dubbed his new find the "mystery circle" and was shocked to find out that a single puffer fish, no more than a few inches long, had created the circles using just one fin. The tiny fish works tirelessly day and night to complete the design. While the circled sculpture is beautiful to look at, Ookata and his crew learned that the fish's creation maintained a dual purpose. Female fish are attracted to the ridges and valleys left in the sand, and they deposit their eggs in the center. The eggs are then shielded from the ocean currents, as the higher points of the sculpture create a barrier to protect them. The more ridges a sculpture contains, the more likely it will attract the females of the species.

This discovery really just scratches the surface of knowledge about the ocean. The rest of the 95 percent still awaits exploration. ( Trending Now )

READ MORE - Mystery Behind Deep-Sea Crop Circles off the Coast of Japan Solved

Mystery of King Tut's death solved?

Mystery of King Tut's death solved? - The mystery of King Tut's death might finally be solved, according to one scientist who argues that the secret to the young pharaoh's demise is hidden in plain sight.

Dr. Hutan Ashrafian, a lecturer and surgeon at the Imperial College London, says the key to the mystery lies in the art from the period, which depicted King Tut with highly feminine features, including enlarged breasts.

ABC News - Mystery of King Tut's Death Solved? (ABC News)

The enlarged breasts, he argues, are indicative of a condition known as gynecomastia, which, when added to a host of historical and familial evidence, indicates that Tutankhamun might have suffered and eventually died from temporal lobe epilepsy.

Ashrafian says the first clue is in the relatively early deaths of other rulers who were directly related to Tutankhamun.

"For all of them to die sequentially at younger ages is a sign of a genetic inheritance of some sort," Ashrafian said, adding "you could argue one of them died in battle, one of them was poisoned but none of them did die in battle. They could have been poisoned, of course, but it's very odd for sequential pharaohs who were aware that they could have been killed to be killed at such a young age."

He also points to the great periods of religious change that Egypt went through, pointing especially to Tutankhamun's father, Akhenaten, who attempted to change Egypt's religion from polytheism to a more monotheistic one focused on the God Aten. According to accounts of the time, these changes were made after a series of powerful religious visions had by Akhenaten, visions of the sort that are often associated with temporal lobe epilepsy.

Finally, Ashrafian said, one must take into account the manner of the death itself. "When they did a scan on his body, they found he died from a fracture, he had a fracture on his leg," Ashrafian said.

"People who have epilepsy have a much higher incidence of dying from accidents and falls at a young age. They can also suffer from something called SUDE, Sudden Unexplained Death of Epilepsy. In general, they have a much higher incidents of dying young."

Ashrafian says this is another piece of evidence that is supported by the art of the time. "He had lots of depictions of being with a walking stick," he said. "This was not common with the ancient pharaohs. Clearly, he had a condition where he might have had lots of falls, he might have died from one of these accidental falls."

When taken together, Ashrafian argues, there is a clear diagnosis: The feminized features, the early deaths, the religious visions, the broken bones.

"There's one condition linking all these elements together that's inheritable," he said, "and that's temporal lobe epilepsy." ( ABC News )

READ MORE - Mystery of King Tut's death solved?

200-year-old mystery of the 'monster larvae' discovered in the bellies of dolphins finally solved ... as DNA shows it grows into scarlet-red shrimp

200-year-old mystery of the 'monster larvae' discovered in the bellies of dolphins finally solved ... as DNA shows it grows into scarlet-red shrimp - For two centuries we have been finding the babies - but never the parents.

Time after time, fishermen or scientists would discover 'monster larvae' - more formally known as Cerataspis monstrosa - in the bellies of other fish. But despite significant effort, no-one ever found the adult form.

But the 180-year-old mystery appears to be solved after some detective work of biology professor Keith Crandall, from George Washington University in Washington.

Taking DNA out of the larvae, Crandall went through the code and found that Cerataspis monstrosa was in fact the offspring of a deep-water shrimp - Plesiopenaeus armatus - even if the two look very different from each other.

What is this thing? No-one has seen Cerataspis monstrosa as an adult - but now the mystery may be solved

In his paper, published in the journal 'Ecology and Evolution,' Dr. Crandall explains how 'monster larva' and the deep-water aristeid shrimp known as Plesiopenaeus armatus are one in the same: larvae and adult forms of the same species.

Attempts to find the adult incarnation of the larva weren't without significant effort over the span of time.

The crustacean's ability to morph into a shrimp bearing no resemblance to its juvenile form was a challenge as externally, the two couldn't be more different.

C. monstrosa, has heavy armor, a thick body and exceptional horn ornamentation and is described as 'a monstrous and misshapen animal'.

It is the preferred meal for its predators such as skipjack, yellowfin and blackfin tuna and dolphin.

Cerataspis monstrosa vs. Plesiopenaeus armatus: DNA work shows the creature on the left grows up to be the shrimp on the right

The Plesiopenaeus resembles a lobster or crab with its red, enclosed exterior and is elusive.

It calls the deep sea waters such as the Atlantic Ocean home but finding the specimen to make a match has proven to be difficult for zoologists.

Dr. Crandall said it was not until the late 19th century that researchers started to suspect a link between the Cerataspis and some of the deep sea shrimp.

Mid-water oceanic collections in the northern Gulf of Mexico unexpectedly included a single specimen of C. monstrosa for genetic analyses.

'Because previous studies suggested an affinity between Cerataspis and penaeoid shrimp, and more specifically the family Aristeidae, we sampled heavily within these groups,' he said.

The Crandall lab has been collecting crustacean DNA sequence data for a number of years and therefore had an excellent reference database to compare the Cerataspis DNA.

That's when analysis placed the larva and the deep-sea shrimp as one in the same.

'It's very exciting to have solved a nearly 200-year-old conundrum,' said Dr. Crandall.

'This was a project that involved having good luck with obtaining the sample, exceptional field knowledge to preserve the specimen and know that it was something special, outstanding state-of-the-art molecular and analytical tools to collect unique data that have only been available in the last 10 years.

'Larval-adult linkages not only aid in our understanding of biodiversity, they provide insights into the life history, distribution and ecology of an organism,' said Dr. Crandall. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - 200-year-old mystery of the 'monster larvae' discovered in the bellies of dolphins finally solved ... as DNA shows it grows into scarlet-red shrimp

Crop circles appear in E. Washington wheat field

Crop circles appear in E. Washington wheat field — Mysterious crop circles have appeared in an eastern Washington wheat field — not far from the nation's largest hydropower producer — but area farmers preparing for the summer's harvest find the distraction more amusing than alarming.

"You can't do anything other than laugh about it," said Cindy Geib, who owns the field along with her husband, Greg. "You just kind of roll with the theory it's aliens and you're special because aliens chose your spot."

In this July 30, 2012 photo provided by The Wilbur Register, crop circles are shown in a wheat field owned by Greg and Cindy Geib near Wilbur, Wash. The circles were first noticed on July 24, 2012. Crop circles …more have been a worldwide phenomenon for decades, and this is not the first one in Lincoln County. (AP Photo/The Wilbur Register, Courtney Ruiz)

Friends called the Geibs on July 24 when the pattern of flattened wheat was spotted off Highway 174, about five miles north of the town of Wilbur. The field is about 10 miles south of the Grand Coulee dam, which the Bureau of Reclamation says is the largest hydropower producer in the United States.

The circles resemble a four-leaf clover and remind Cindy Geib of Mickey Mouse ears. The design knocked down about an acre of their wheat. Some of it could be salvaged by combines when the harvest starts in a week or two, she said, but some will be lost.

"Of course, we don't have alien insurance," she said.

Crop circles have been a worldwide phenomenon for decades, and this is not the first one in Lincoln County. Similar circular patterns were left in crops in the Wilbur area in 2010 and in 2008 or 2009, Geib said.

Lynne Brougher, public affairs officer for the Grand Coulee dam, hadn't heard about the latest crop circles but said the previous one was no cause for alarm.

"It seemed to be highly unusual," Brougher said. "As I recall from a couple of years ago, there was no good explanation of how they got there."
Still, she added, "it wasn't a concern."

The latest crop circle was first reported Tuesday by Spokane station KHQ-TV (http://is.gd/57FTpy ). There were no signs that anyone walked into the field.

"We're trying to figure out how they got out there without breaking any of the wheat. It's hard to walk through the crunchy wheat and not knock it down," Geib said. "At the same time, it's hard to think it's aliens. It's a bizarre thing to wrap your brain around."

Geib's daughter-in-law, Kelly Geib of Wilbur, says the crop circle has given the family something to ponder and chuckle about.

"The kids all like to say the aliens have come, and we're happy to indulge them," she said. ( Associated Press )

READ MORE - Crop circles appear in E. Washington wheat field