Day: December 24, 2008

British tourist finds a treasure in Byzantine gold coins

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Daylife/AFP/Getty Images

An amateur British archaeologist has discovered almost 300 gold coins dating from the 7th Century at a dig just outside Jerusalem’s Old City.

Birmingham woman Nadine Ross, 34, found the solid 24-carat coins under a large rock in a car park. Ms Ross is being feted for finding one of the largest and most impressive coin hoards ever discovered in Jerusalem.

“It’s very, very exciting… we’ve had pottery, we’ve had glass, but we’ve had nothing like this,” said Ms Ross, who normally works as an engineer for BMW.

Dr Doron Ben-Ami says the coins were probably hidden by someone fleeing the Persian attack on Jerusalem in the early 7th Century.

I think treasure hunts are part of what make archaeologists out of children.

Little Red Wagon 2.0

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Maybe you had one as a kid, or knew someone who did. It’s the iconic little red wagon with the Radio Flyer logo. If so, you might not recognize the newest product dreamed up by the brain trust at Radio Flyer’s Chicago, Illinois, headquarters.

This wagon, called the Cloud 9, is equipped with enough high-tech bells and whistles to make the family minivan jealous.

“We approached this product much like an automotive company might with a concept car,” said Mark Johnson, Radio Flyer’s product development manager.

Outfitted with 5-point safety harnesses, padded seats, cup holders, foot brakes and fold-out storage containers, the sleek, curved Cloud 9 has every family covered for a ride through the park. But that’s just for starters.

There’s a digital handle that tracks temperature, time, distance and speed — just in case energetic parents want to track their split times around the playground. And there’s a slot for an iPod, complete with speakers, for some cruising tunes.

Radio Flyer rules! No question about it.

I loved the wagon I had when I was a kid. Wish I still had the critter. You couldn’t kill it.

Chocolate, wine and tea improve brain performance

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All that chocolate might actually help finish the bumper Christmas crossword over the seasonal period. According to Oxford researchers working with colleagues in Norway, chocolate, wine and tea enhance cognitive performance.

The team from Oxford and Norway examined the relation between cognitive performance and the intake of three common foodstuffs that contain flavonoids (chocolate, wine, and tea) in 2,031 older people (aged between 70 and 74).

Participants filled in information about their habitual food intake and underwent a battery of cognitive tests.Those who consumed chocolate, wine, or tea had significantly better mean test scores and lower prevalence of poor cognitive performance than those who did not.

Fruits and beverages such as tea, red wine, cocoa, and coffee are major dietary sources of polyphenols, micronutrients found in plant-derived foods. The largest subclass of dietary polyphenols is flavonoids, and it has been reported in the past that those who consume lots of flavonoids have a lower incidence of dementia.

The latest findings seem to support the theory, although the researchers caution that more research would be needed to prove that it was flavonoids, rather than some other aspect of the foods studied, that made the difference.The effect was most pronounced for wine.

And sex. Don’t forget about sex!

Motorola blocking RIM job offers for workers they laid-off. WTF?

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BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd sued Motorola Inc over claims the mobile-phone maker is improperly blocking it from offering jobs to laid-off Motorola workers, Bloomberg said.

RIM, in a complaint filed in state court in Chicago, asked for an order invalidating an agreement the companies reached this year not to solicit each other’s employees, the agency said.

The agreement expired in August and is no longer enforceable, the agency said, citing the complaint.

Motorola is improperly trying to expand the agreement “to prevent the RIM entities from hiring any Motorola employees, including the thousands of employees Motorola has already fired or will fire,” RIM was quoted as saying in the complaint.

Ah, the holiday spirit in Silicon Valley.

Abandoned horses rescued from B.C. wilderness

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Ron Willert, SnowAndMud.com

Two horses abandoned in the rugged B.C. wilderness have been rescued by a band of Christmas saviours.

The horses were about 14 km along a 27-km, hand-dug trail through the mountainous terrain near McBride, B.C., by 9 p.m. yesterday. “They’ll be at a farm tonight,” said a jubilant Glenn Daykin, owner of local sled shop Spindrift Power Sports, who helped co-ordinate the rescue effort.

The horses walked on their own, he said, after a week of feeding to build their strength. They were severely malnourished when they were found a week ago.

Residents suspect that the horses were left to fend for themselves by a hunter…

Daykin said that the volunteers had to clear a roughly metre-wide path through snow nearly two metres deep. “It’s exceptional that over a matter of seven or eight days they were able to dig a trail,” he said.

Those walking with the horses were not expected home until late last night.

Bravo. Nice to be reminded that some human beings still care about life around them.

Anyone hear about any politicians shoveling?

Give to the Grameen Foundation

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My suggestion for a holiday gift – like my partner K B – is to give to others. My choice is the Grameen Foundation.

Grameen Foundation’s mission is to enable the poor, especially the poorest, to create a world without poverty.

With tiny loans, financial services and technology, we help the poor, mostly women, start self-sustaining businesses to escape poverty. Founded in 1997 by a group of friends who were inspired by the work of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, our global network of 55 microfinance institution (MFI) partners, including our Growth Guarantee partners, has touched more than 34 million people in 24 countries. Our partners reach 6.8 million clients, and in addition, we introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing our total country outreach to 28.

Our team is guided by our values and our Grameen heritage, and our work is made possible by supporters who share our passion and commitment for defeating poverty through microfinance.

This is a simple, perhaps more basic way to act to change the inequities of opportunity in this world. The history of Grameen Bank and those who support this standard for human charity around the world is praiseworthy. The Grameen Bank and the Grameen Foundation deserve what you can spare in these troubled times.

Could Getting More Sleep Discourage Hardening of Arteries?

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People who scrimp on sleep are more likely to develop hardening of their arteries, a precursor to heart disease, research suggests.

Calcified arteries were found in nearly a third of people who slept fewer than five hours a night.

This dropped to around one in 10 for those who slept an extra hour, the Journal of the American Medical Association study of 495 adults found….

At the first scan, none of the volunteers had any calcification in their arteries but five years later 61 of them did.

This calcification appeared to be linked with lack of sleep.

The risk was lowest for those who regularly had more than seven hours sleep each night.

The researchers make clear that factors other than sleep may be involved– stress, blood pressure (which is affected by sleep), etc. In other words, if you are not getting enough sleep, you may have to examine your lifestyle in general. But that doesn’t mean that sleep issues might not serve as an important red flag.

Jumbo snow globes + sunlight = consumer hazard

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Some 7,000 jumbo-sized snow globes were recalled by Hallmark Cards Inc. because the holiday decorations can act as a magnifying glass when exposed to sunlight and ignite nearby combustible materials, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said on Tuesday.

The consumer agency said Hallmark has received two reports of the snow globes igniting nearby materials but no injuries have been reported.

Consumers who bought the snow globes, which measure 11 by 12 by 17 inches (28 by 30 by 43cm), should immediately remove them from exposure to sunlight and return to a Hallmark Gold Crown store for a full refund.

Isn’t there anyone in management at Hallmark who ever was a Boy Scout?

No recession for the Navy – $14 billion worth of subs ordered

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Daylife/AP Photo by Robert F. Bukaty

The U.S. navy has signed a contract worth some 14 billion U.S. dollars with General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman to build eight new Virginia-class submarines.

In a statement, General Dynamics said its Electric Boat unit and Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding, a unit of Northrop Grumman, will start building the submarines next year.

These submarines are capable of speeds in excess of 25 knots (46 km per hour) and can dive to a minimum depth of 244 meters, while carrying Mark 48 advanced capability torpedoes, Tomahawk land attack missiles and unmanned underwater vehicles.

Well, whoop-de-fracking-doo! The cities all over America have to cut back on everything from education budgets to support for their police departments – but, one of Bush’s farewells to the American taxpayer is guaranteeing that we can fight World War 3 from a position of hardware supremacy.