Dead Sea

Passing thence over a broad plateau, a favourite camping-ground of the Bedawîn, we reach at length the top of the Pass of Engedi, where the Dead Sea and the rugged mountains of Moab first burst upon the view . . . .When, as often happens in the rainy season, the sky is overcast with clouds, a dense haze obscuring the mountains, and a fleecy mist hovers over the water, the Dead Sea seems, indeed, worthy of its name: look where one may, no sign of life is visible, and no sound is heard save the dull monotonous surging of the waves. The shore, too, is the very picture of barrenness and desolation, the white salt incrustation which covers it being only relieved by the dark patches of black rolling mud or stagnant pools of brine. But on a bright and sunny day the salt lake wears a far different aspect. The clear transparent waters then sparkle with a sapphire hue, and the mountains glow with variegated tints. All animated nature also seems to quicken into life, and flocks of storks and cranes may be seen flying overhead . .

Dead Sea

Doctors: Penis enlargement surgery no help

Thanks to the incessant spam, it’s become the most hyped of all operations but researchers said on Tuesday that most men who have had penis enlargement surgery are not satisfied with the results.

"For patients with psychological concern about the size of the penis -- particularly if it is normal size -- there is little point in offering them surgery because it makes no difference,” said Nim Christopher, a urologist at St Peter’s Andrology Center in London.

Christopher and his colleagues, who questioned 42 men who had the surgery, found the dissatisfaction rate was very high. Often the men requested another surgical procedure.

Doctors: Penis enlargement surgery no help

Newspaper History

The history of newspapers is an often-dramatic chapter of the human experience going back some five centuries. In Renaissance Europe handwritten newsletters circulated privately among merchants, passing along information about everything from wars and economic conditions to social customs and "human interest" features. The first printed forerunners of the newspaper appeared in Germany in the late 1400's in the form of news pamphlets or broadsides, often highly sensationalized in content. Some of the most famous of these report the atrocities against Germans in Transylvania perpetrated by a sadistic veovod named Vlad Tsepes Drakul, who became the Count Dracula of later folklore.

In the English-speaking world, the earliest predecessors of the newspaper were corantos, small news pamphlets produced only when some event worthy of notice occurred. The first successively published title was The Weekly Newes of 1622. It was followed in the 1640's and 1650's by a plethora of different titles in the similar newsbook format. The first true newspaper in English was the London Gazette of 1666. For a generation it was the only officially sanctioned newspaper, though many periodical titles were in print by the century's end.

Newspaper History

Big Flap Over World's Smallest Fish

It may be tiny, but this fish has sparked a debate that's big—though nowhere near as ugly.

A U.S. scientist says this male anglerfish found in the Philippines is the smallest fish in the world.

Ted Pietsch, a fisheries professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, discovered the fish in the collection of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California. He first announced his find last May.

A mere 0.24 inch (6.2 millimeters) long, the fish known as Photocorynus spiniceps may take the prize as the world's smallest catch. But it has some wee competition.

Last week an international team of researchers announced that they, too, had discovered Earth's littlest fish. Their find, a member of the carp family found in the peat swamps of Indonesia, is 0.31 inch (7.9 millimeters) long and so slim that it's transparent.

What's more, scientists at the Australian Museum in Sydney in 2004 unveiled a tiny fish found in the Great Barrier Reef that measures from 0.28 to 0.31 inch (7 to 8 millimeters) in length.

Big Flap Over World's Smallest Fish

"Lost World" Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species

To boldly go where no one has gone before, one group of scientists didn't have to venture into space. They found a lost world right here on Earth.

"It really was like crossing some sort of time warp into a place that people hadn't been to," said Bruce Beehler of the wildlife expedition he co-led in December into the isolated Foja Mountains on the tropical South Pacific island of New Guinea.

During a 15-day stay at a camp they had cut out of the jungle, the conservationists found a trove of animals never before documented, from a new species of the honeyeater bird to more than 20 new species of frogs.

"Lost World" Found in Indonesia Is Trove of New Species

POMPEII

The Roman forum was, like the Greek agora, the center of public life. Not just an open space between buildings, the forum was the locus of Senate and Imperial proclamations, the place where the augurs were read and the auspices pronounced, and a central area for ostentacious display of grief and gratitude. Unlike the agora, the forum gradually became non-commercial. Instituted in the early Republican era, by the time of Augustus no carts were allowed in the Roman Forum, necessitating the establishment of specialty marketplaces (like the Forum Boarium, or cattle market) separated from the forum for health reasons. The forum at Pompeii was typical in its plan: at far end of a long open square was a temple set upon a high podium, the processional axis of which formed the formal axis and focal point of the forum. Colonnades along the other three perimeters of the space established a visually unified setting and provided covered walkways between the buildings on both sides.

POMPEII