Sunday, December 25th, 2005

Time	Event
4:12a	Dodo for Xmas They have discovered the remains of an intact Dodo bird, if not several and no His name is not George Walker Dodo. And it is not yet known if the last of the Dodo's were eaten on Xmas day. Dutch may have complete skeleton of Dodo bird December 25, 2005 BY TOBY STERLING AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Scientists said they likely have found a complete skeleton of the long-extinct Dodo bird. The Dodo was native to Mauritius when no humans lived there but its numbers rapidly dwindled after the arrival of Portuguese and Dutch sailors in the 1500s. The last recorded sighting of a live bird was in 1663. An international team of researchers said they found the bones of the bird on a sugar cane plantation on the island of Mauritius off the east coast of Madagascar, and presented their findings in the Dutch city of Leiden Friday. No complete skeleton of a single Dodo bird had ever been retrieved before from an archeological site in Mauritius. The last known stuffed bird was destroyed in a 1755 fire at a museum in Oxford, England, leaving only partial skeletons and drawings of the bird. ''We have found 700 bones including bones from 20 Dodo birds and chicks but we believe there are many more at the site,'' said Kenneth Rijsdijk, a Dutch geologist who led the dig. DNA material from other Dodos exists, but Rijsdijk said better samples could be retrieved from the latest find, estimated to be 2,000 to 3,000 years old. The Dodo's name comes from a Portuguese word for ''fool,'' so named because the bird showed no fear of humans and couldn't fly, making it easy prey. The Dutch called it the Walgvogel, or ''nasty bird'' because it tasted so bad. Modern scientists understand the Dodo more favorably. They believe the bird did not fear humans because it had no natural predators on Mauritius and had lost the ability to fly because it was so large: adults grew to around three feet and weighed around 50 pounds -- far bigger than a pelican. (Comment on this)
4:30a	More Xmas Food For Thought Oh dear this will never do What will Rolf Harris say? Listen to his song Six White Boomers, soon to be five, four, three, two, one, none...... Q: When is a kangaroo not a kangaroo? A: When it's being served up for dinner By Kathy Marks in Sydney Published: 21 December 2005 Australians could soon be tossing a chunk of australus on the barbecue, because of plans to rename kangaroo meat and divorce it from its cuddly Skippy image. While kangaroo is a lean and delicious red meat, Australians have been squeamish about consuming their national symbol. Most kangaroo meat ends up as pet food, although it is also exported, particularly to Europe, where the Russians love to eat it in sausages. (Comment on this)
4:56a	One Small Step For Man Ice Age footprints hold outback's clues tell a touching tale By Kathy Marks in Sydney Published: 23 December 2005 Archaeologists have unearthed the world's largest collection of Ice Age era footprints, dating from about 20,000 years ago, in the bed of a dry lake in the New South Wales outback. The fossilised tracks, in a clay pan in Mungo National Park, are said to be astonishingly well-preserved. They offer a fresh and touchingly human insight into the lifestyle of ancient Aborigines. Among the images they evoke are children milling around their parents' ankles, a hunter sprinting at 12 miles an hour, mud squelching between his bare toes, and a dead animal being dragged along the shore of a lake. "This is the nearest we've got to prehistoric film, where you can see someone's heel slip in the mud as they're running fast," said Steve Webb, a Queensland academic who heads the team excavating the prints. With the help of Aborigines, the archaeologists have found 457 prints beneath sand dunes in the park, 500 miles west of Sydney. An Aboriginal park ranger, Mary Pappin Junior, from the Mutthi Mutthi people, stumbled across the first footprint two years ago. The tracks range from toddler-size prints to a "bigfoot" set of prints, believed to belong to a 6ft 6in man, with size 12 feet, who was pursuing an unknown prey, possibly water birds. They also include footprints left by a one-legged man who appears to have covered some distance without a walking stick or other assistance. The findings, to appear in the Journal of Human Evolution, were described by Bob Debus, the state environment minister, as "one of the most significant cultural and archaeological discoveries made in Australia in recent times". Mr Debus, who helped fund the project, said: "These footprints present us with a moving snapshot of the people who lived during the planet's last Ice Age." The archaeologists believe they have unearthed less than one-third of the tracks in swampland near the shores of Willandra Lakes between 19,000 and 23,000 years ago. Professor Webb, of Bond University, added: "They're wonderful prints, so lifelike. It brings that element of life that other archaeological remains can't. We've hardly scratched the surface." The footprint fossils have been discovered in the same area where Australia's oldest human remains - believe to be from 40,000 years ago - were found. Archaeologists have unearthed the world's largest collection of Ice Age era footprints, dating from about 20,000 years ago, in the bed of a dry lake in the New South Wales outback. The fossilised tracks, in a clay pan in Mungo National Park, are said to be astonishingly well-preserved. They offer a fresh and touchingly human insight into the lifestyle of ancient Aborigines. Among the images they evoke are children milling around their parents' ankles, a hunter sprinting at 12 miles an hour, mud squelching between his bare toes, and a dead animal being dragged along the shore of a lake. "This is the nearest we've got to prehistoric film, where you can see someone's heel slip in the mud as they're running fast," said Steve Webb, a Queensland academic who heads the team excavating the prints. With the help of Aborigines, the archaeologists have found 457 prints beneath sand dunes in the park, 500 miles west of Sydney. An Aboriginal park ranger, Mary Pappin Junior, from the Mutthi Mutthi people, stumbled across the first footprint two years ago. The tracks range from toddler-size prints to a "bigfoot" set of prints, believed to belong to a 6ft 6in man, with size 12 feet, who was pursuing an unknown prey, possibly water birds. They also include footprints left by a one-legged man who appears to have covered some distance without a walking stick or other assistance. The findings, to appear in the Journal of Human Evolution, were described by Bob Debus, the state environment minister, as "one of the most significant cultural and archaeological discoveries made in Australia in recent times". Mr Debus, who helped fund the project, said: "These footprints present us with a moving snapshot of the people who lived during the planet's last Ice Age." The archaeologists believe they have unearthed less than one-third of the tracks in swampland near the shores of Willandra Lakes between 19,000 and 23,000 years ago. Professor Webb, of Bond University, added: "They're wonderful prints, so lifelike. It brings that element of life that other archaeological remains can't. We've hardly scratched the surface." The footprint fossils have been discovered in the same area where Australia's oldest human remains - believe to be from 40,000 years ago - were found. (2 Comments | Comment on this)

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