Doubts over 'ancient' books in Israel

26 July 2011 Last updated at 23:04 GMT By Kevin Connolly BBC News, Jerusalem The metal books, the Lead Codices, range in size and are covered in ancient lettering In the cool living room of a stone-built house in Northern Israel I might just have held in my hands the keys to the ancient mysteries of Christianity.

And then again, I might not have.

With the blinds shuttered against the glare of the midday sun my host, Hassan Saeda, lays out a collection of extraordinary books which he says are about 2,000 years old.

Flowing of hair and neat of beard, he bears a distracting resemblance to an illustration of Christ from an old children's Bible. It lends the scene an air of extra gravity.

Continue reading the main story

I spent so much time and so much money to prove these are real. There are a lot of professors and one of them told me that I'm living in a fantasy”

End Quote Hassan Saeda Owner of metal books The books - bindings, pages, covers and all - are made entirely of various metals.

They are inscribed - or engraved, stamped or embossed - with various simple pictures and writing in a variety of languages including Greek and Old Hebrew.

And they are astonishingly heavy. Some are no larger than a credit card but some are the size of large-format modern paperbacks. The largest that I handled probably weighed 4 or 5kg (about 10lbs).

You can see why the publishing industry was eventually won over by the flexibility and portability of paper.

Family heirloom?

But that is where the supply of undisputable concrete fact about the collection - which some people refer to as the "Lead Codices" - more or less runs out.

Mr Saeda, for example, says the books have been in his family for 120 years, after his grandfather discovered them in a cave.

Other people who have met him to discuss the books say he found or bought them in Jordan within the last five years and smuggled them into Israel.

Mr Saeda is sticking to the current version of his story in which he acknowledges that many experts who have seen the metal volumes consider them to be fakes.

The texts might tell the story of the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem - or not

His faith is undimmed.

"I spent so much time and so much money to prove these are real. There are a lot of professors and one of them told me that I'm living in a fantasy.

My answer to him was: 'I think you got old and your eyes don't see anything.' I took my book and went away. Many professors say it's a fake. Why? I don't know why. But this is a real book."

Mysticism and magic swirl in the dark air as Mr Saeda enlarges on the possibilities he sees in the codices.

They might contain the real story of the destruction of the Jewish Second Temple by the Romans, he says.

Or they could fill the gaps in our knowledge of the early Christian movement. They might even hold the key to universal happiness.

If they are real, that is.

The 'True Cross'

The Holy Land is one of the homes of archaeology. Indeed for years, one of the main purposes of the science was to search for tangible evidence that would prove the truth of the stories of the Bible.

Antiquarians warn shoppers to buy with caution because the market is flooded with fakes

And there has always been money in it too.

There are enough pieces of the "True Cross" in circulation to make a wooden aircraft carrier. And enough nails to put it together.

British taxpayers will wince at the thought that a king of England once paid 100,000 gold coins for the "real" crown of thorns from the New Testament.

There are stories of not one but several foreskins of Jesus which have been recovered, sold and venerated and of the feathers of the wings of the Archangel Michael being preserved in Pennsylvania.

For every seller, it seems there is a buyer.

Continue reading the main story

The greater, the more sensational the story, the more the chances of it being real are miniscule ”

End Quote Lenny Wolfe Israeli antiquarian So I went to see Lenny Wolfe, an antiquarian who lives and trades in Jerusalem and who painted a gripping picture of a Middle East antiques market where the unwary and the inexpert tread at their peril.

Factories in Syria knock out fake antiquities to order and every month brings new stories of caves in the remote valleys of Jordan where golden treasures are hidden that will change the way we see the world.

Mr Wolfe has seen the lead codices and decided not to invest. He is a philosopher as well as a trader, interested in the foibles which inspire people to seek out antiquities which may well be fake and to pin their hopes on them.

Or, as he put it: "The greater, the more sensational the story, the more the chances of it being real are miniscule. I'm very interested in the behavioural or anthropological aspects of the antiquities trade."

Mr Wolfe is writing a book, entitled Forgeries and Controversies in Biblical Archaeology. "There are enough controversies and forgeries to make this a lengthy tome," he says.

Golden rule

Joe Zias, an anthropologist who served for 25 years as a senior curator at the Israel Antiquities Authority, is equally sceptical.

The golden rule in archaeology, he says, is simple - when you hear extraordinary claims, ask for extraordinary proof.

Mr Zias says the world of archaeology has changed since Hollywood gave us first Indiana Jones and then the Da Vinci code.

Israel's 2000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls were found half a century ago in caves in the West Bank

No longer is the archaeologist a nerdy toff with a shovel and a Shorter Oxford Dictionary of Latin. Suddenly he or she, is a swashbuckling figure solving the sinister mysteries of antiquity.

They are still searching for the Holy Grail of course - except that now the Holy Grail is not just the find itself but a story of danger and adventure in the process of searching that secures you a deal for a book or a documentary.

Joe Zias says the odds are always against any such finding turning out to change the way we look at ancient history as the Dead Sea Scrolls once did.

He says he has seen many people bringing artefacts to his museum during his quarter-century as a curator, but the only genuine one was a fragment of Byzantine pottery found by a tourist on Mount Sinai.

"It wasn't going back to the time of Moses, but in 25 years that's the only thing I ever saw that was authentic," he says.

Now there are those who believe - just as Mr Saeda does - that the Lead Codices are genuine and that they hold important secrets about the ancient world.

But the search for truth in the Holy Land has been littered with fakes and forgeries for hundreds of years and when great claims are made for a new discovery, the burden of proof lies with the finders. And the burden is a heavy one.

View the original article here

Search under way for jubilee wood

30 July 2011 Last updated at 01:33 GMT The ambitious 500-acre woodland would take three or four years to complete The Woodland Trust is searching for a 500-acre site to plant half-a-million trees in a flagship woodland that will celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

The ideal location would be an accessible location near a large population, a spokeswoman said.

The team hoped to begin planting trees on the chosen site in the autumn.

As well as planting the jubilee wood, the trust is also looking for volunteer hosts for a further 59 60-acre "diamond woods" across the UK.

"While the jubilee wood is going to be a national, living monument to the Queen, we also want it to be used and enjoyed by people," explained Georgina Mcleod, the trust's head of jubilee woods.

She added that apart from the site being near to people, accessible and suitable for woodland creation, there were very few criteria.

"As we will be buying this site, we do not mind who we buy it from - a local authority, private landowner, whoever - as long as we can afford it," Ms Mcleod told BBC News.

The 500-acre (200ha) project is earmarked to cost in the region of ?5m, she estimated.

"This includes buying the land, planting the trees and other logistics too, such as putting in footpaths and engaging the local community.

"The total will also pay for some sort of jubilee interpretation; how do we make this site really, really special? How do we make it somewhere that people want to visit and will be a memorable legacy to the Queen."

An estimated 500,000 trees will be planted over a three-to-four year period. They will be primarily native broadleaf species, such as ash, oak, rowan, birch and hornbeam.

60-60 vision

The Woodland Trust is also looking to establish a further 59 smaller woodlands to complement the large, flagship one.

"This is where there might be local authorities or landowners who would want to host one of these. We are going to create the huge 500-acre one, and we want 59 other locations to create a 60-acre (24ha) woodland each," Ms Mcleod explained.

She said that they had about 20 sites confirmed and were still looking for more offers.

On a smaller scale still, Ms Mcleod explained that the trust would be giving away free tree planting packs to local communities that wanted to establish a wooded area to commemorate the jubilee. In total, the project was looking to plant six million trees.

The project is thought to be the first of its kind. However, a committee was established to oversee tree-planting to mark the coronation of King George VI in 1936.

A 642-page book was published in 1939 that listed the location and species of every single tree that was planted, not just in the UK but in other parts of the British Empire.

Ms Mcleod explained that the Queen Mother was the patron of the 1936 campaign, and that Princess Anne had agreed to follow in her grandmother's footsteps and be the patron of the 2012 jubilee project.

The tree-planting is expected to get under way from November, when this year's planting season would normally start.

View the original article here

A star is formed

28 July 2011 Last updated at 13:40 GMT By Jonathan Amos Science correspondent, BBC News Number 16 goes into position. Another 50 will follow in the next 18 months One of the grand astronomical projects of the 21st Century is open for business.

The Alma radio telescope facility high up in Chile's Atacama Desert has put its 16th antenna in place, giving it a configuration that allows it to do some very capable science.

Eventually, it will have 66 dishes.

This will give the observatory an unprecedented view of the cool Universe - all the gas and dust that goes into building stars and planets.

It will also enable astronomers to see events in the very early cosmos that are beyond the detection of current technologies.

"There's nothing really magical about the number 16, but the sensitivity gain on current instruments is so great it would be a shame not to start doing some serious science with Alma," said Dr John Richer, the UK Alma project scientist based at Cambridge University.

Alma (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) is a co-operative venture that includes the scientific and engineering inputs of Europe, East Asia, North America, and the host nation, Chile.

Alma's 12m-dishes and their associated receiver systems and electronics are manufactured around the world before being shipped for final integration in South America.

The finished antennas are driven up on to Atacama's Chajnantor plateau by special 28-wheeled trucks, in which the drivers must sit in oxygenated cabins to cope with the thin air found at Alma's 5,000m-high location.

A star is formed

Number 16 has the distinction of being the "first European antenna" to make it up the mountain.

The 15 already in position have made some observations but these were more technical in nature, explained Professor Brian Ellison, Alma's UK Project Manager based at the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.

"Those observations were early engineering checks to assess that the systems were working as expected," he said.

"Obviously, as you do more science, that tends to reveal more [flaws] that engineers can go back and work on."

The air on Atacama's Chajnantor plateau is thin and extremely dry - perfect for astronomy

The facility is designed to detect millimetre and submillimetre signals from the sky with multiple antennas.

By combining those signals in a process known as interferometry, Alma can mimic the capabilities of a single, giant antenna with a diameter equal to the distance between the dishes.

In the 16-antenna configuration this distance at its maximum separation is just 400m; when Alma is completed in 2013, the separation will be more than 15km.

This will give the observatory unrivalled sensitivity and resolution.

Key early targets will be the "birthing clouds" of new stars, and the discs of dusty debris that emerge around these newborns to produce planets.

The European Space Agency currently operates an orbiting telescope called Herschel that has returned remarkable pictures of these same star-forming regions, but Alma will be capable of subjecting them to forensic investigation.

"Herschel is making maps of big star-forming complexes," said Dr Richer.

"What Alma will do is zoom in on the interesting areas and make ultra-high-resolution images that show not just a blob where the galaxies or the molecules are, but resolves in very, very fine detail the structure of those objects, whether it's the gas discs forming around stars or the collisions between galaxies at [great distance]."

Alma will also go after events in the very early Universe, in particular the so-called "Epoch of Re-ionisation".

This was a period about 400-plus million years after the Big Bang that saw a fundamental change in the cosmic environment - when the intense ultraviolet light from the first stars turned the dominantly neutral hydrogen gas then pervading the Universe into the diffuse intergalactic plasma we detect between the stars today.

Rich science

The world's astronomers have scrambled to be part of the early science observations.

Almost 1,000 proposals have been submitted - far more than can be accommodated in the initial nine months of viewing time.

Dr Richer is not surprised by the rush to use Alma. He is in no doubt that it will become one of the premier facilities in the front line of science.

"It doesn't have quite the same profile as, say, the Large Hadron Collider and it doesn't have the same price tag," he told BBC News.

"Nonetheless, it is the most complex observatory ever constructed on the ground in terms of its engineering and scale.

"We're doing this because we believe it will have commensurate scientific returns. Over the next 20 years, Alma will deliver an incredible wealth of new discoveries."

Europe's participation is co-ordinated through the European Southern Observatory organisation, which runs a number of other astronomical facilities in Chile, including the nearby Very Large Telescope (VLT).

Europe's Herschel telescope is mapping the "cold cosmos". Alma will zoom into the most interesting places and objects Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk

View the original article here

'Tonne of ivory' smuggled to US

26 July 2011 Last updated at 21:39 GMT An art dealer has been arrested and accused of smuggling a tonne of African ivory into the US for sale at his Philadelphia store.

Victor Gordon, 68, paid a conspirator to fly to Africa, purchase raw ivory and have it carved to his specifications, prosecutors said.

The conspirator dyed the carvings in order to make them appear old before smuggling them into the US, they said.

Traffic in ivory is tightly restricted under US and international law.

"It's safe to say dozens of elephants sit before you," Edward Grace, deputy chief of law enforcement for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, told reporters in Philadelphia.

There, officials displayed for reporters intricately carved whole tusks and smaller sculptures and figurines that agents had seized from Mr Gordon's shop and from his customers.

Elephants are protected under the 1975 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Ivory more than 100 years old can be sold can be legally imported into the US.

The government hopes to seize all the allegedly smuggled ivory

"The amount of the elephant ivory allegedly plundered in this case is staggering and highlights the seriousness of the charged crimes," United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Loretta Lynch said.

"We all have a responsibility to protect endangered species, both for their sake and for the sake of our own future generations."

Ms Lynch's office described the seizure of the ivory in the case as one of the largest in US history.

According to an indictment filed in federal court in New York, Mr Gordon paid an unidentified co-conspirator $32,000 (?19,500) to undertake several trips to purchase "raw" ivory in central and west Africa between May 2006 and April 2009.

The co-conspirator had the ivory carved and stained to disguise its newness, then smuggled it into the US through JFK International Airport in New York.

It was then delivered to Mr Gordon's retail store in Philadelphia, according to the indictment.

In April 2009, federal fish and wildlife officers seized hundreds of ivory tusks and carvings from Mr Gordon's shop in Philadelphia.

As the investigation progressed over the next year-and-a-half, agents seized more pieces from his customers in the states of New York, Kansas, California and Missouri.

Mr Gordon was arrested on Tuesday and charged with 10 counts of violating US anti-ivory smuggling laws, including statutes aimed at protecting endangered species and enforcing the CITES.

If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

View the original article here

DNA test links ageing and poverty

26 July 2011 Last updated at 23:16 GMT The ageing process can be measured by studying chromosomes Scientists in Glasgow have developed a new test of the ageing process based on DNA evidence.

They have said it could provide faster feedback on public health measures.

Until now, evidence of health improvement has involved waiting a generation or more to measure how many people become ill.

Work by the Glasgow Centre for Population Health has confirmed the link between social factors and the rate at which people age.

Their findings have been published in the Public Library of Science.

The scientists measured the length of telomeres, the tails on the ends of chromosomes, in sample groups in the Glasgow area.

The Telomeres tend to become shorter over a person's lifetime, indicating the speed of the ageing process.

The Glasgow researchers found that, over a 10-year period, telomeres shortened by an average of 7.7% in people whose household income was below ?25,000. For those on higher incomes, the shortening averaged 0.6%.

Changes in diet

A similar trend in telomere lengths was found in comparisons of those in rented housing with home owners, and of those with the poorest diets and those who ate well.

Continue reading the main story

This study is a first for Glasgow and indicates that socio-economic conditions do affect the rate at which you age”

End Quote Dr Paul Shiels Glasgow University Dr Paul Shiels, of the Institute of Cancer Studies at Glasgow University, said: "We show that accelerated ageing is associated with social status and deprivation in Glasgow.

"This is most prevalent in the over-55s and those with household incomes under ?25,000.

"This effect is exacerbated by diet - simply not eating your five portions of fruit and veg a day."

The test gives an indication of ageing within population groups, but does not accurately measure the life expectancy of an individual, because of natural differences in telomere length.

Dr Shiels said: "Its value is at a population level, where large numbers of subjects allow us to observe trends over a period of time.

"It is a tool for looking at the impact of changes in diet, for example.

"This study is a first for Glasgow and indicates that socio-economic conditions do affect the rate at which you age."

View the original article here

Pollinators 'lured away by farms'

31 July 2011 Last updated at 00:30 GMT By Mark Kinver Environment reporter, BBC News The researchers say their findings could be applied to habitats around the globe A study has challenged the idea that areas such as farmland provide pollinating insects with a "corridor" between fragmented habitats.

Researchers suggested that the pollinators in their survey were "fickle foragers" and would concentrate on areas rich in pollen and nectar.

The team warned that these behaviour could have an impact on rare native plants that are pollinated by insects.

The findings have been published in the journal Current Biology.

The team of researchers from Oxford University and Earthwatch UK said their findings were a surprise, as the result challenged the long-held assumption that areas that were rich in resources would encourage the movement of pollinators from one group of native trees to another.

However, they added, it actually created a barrier effect for non-specialist feeders.

"Looked at from an insect's point of view, it makes sense," explained co-author David Boshier.

"These insects are not trying to pollinate a particular species of tree, they are just foraging. So if they leave a patch of native forest and fly across farmland which happens to be rich in resources, they are likely to collect pollen and nectar there rather than carry on to another patch of native forest."

However, Dr Boshier added: "Conversely, areas of sparse resources - such as (conifer) plantations - have less to offer so the pollinators are more likely to continue their journey and reach other patch of the native forest."

Pollination patterns

The researchers focused their attention on the pollination of Gomortega keule, an endangered species of tree whose natural stands only survive in patches of native forest in central Chile.

The study warns disruption to pollinators' behaviour could threaten Gomortega keule's long-term survival

The trees' primary pollinators are hoverflies. By sampling seeds, the team was able to develop an understanding of how pollen was transported across the study area.

"If you can imagine about 900 trees, and all of the potential connections between those trees, then you end up with a lot of data regarding where pollinators are moving or not moving," explained co-author Dr Tonya Lander.

"We used that data to build a model and, on average, these look like the patterns that are emerging," she told BBC News.

"In general, there was more pollination happening when trees are separated by tree plantations, and less pollination happening when the trees were separated by agricultural land."

The team explained that they decided to call this effect the Circe Principle, after a nymph in Homer's Odyssey who seduced Odysseus on his journey home from his adventures.

Another member of the team, Dan Bebber from Earthwatch, said: "This study shows that new landscape models need to take into account the positive contributions and benefits of landscapes defined as 'non-habitat', as well as how best they can be managed.

"Our results identify possible actions to improve the interactions of landscapes of endangered species such as G. keule, and other species pollinated by common insects."

The team now hope to carry out further studies to test whether the Circe Principle applies to other environments.

View the original article here

Arctic fire hints at warming cue

28 July 2011 Last updated at 16:33 GMT By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News In the summer of 2007, more than 1,000 sq km of Alaskan tundra burned near Anaktuvuk River An exceptional wildfire in northern Alaska in 2007 put as much carbon into the air as the entire Arctic tundra absorbs in a year, scientists say.

The Anaktuvuk River fire burned across more than 1,000 sq km (400 sq miles), doubling the extent of Alaskan tundra visited by fire since 1950.

With the Arctic warming fast, the team suggests in the journal Nature that fires could become more common.

If that happens, it could create a new climate feedback, they say.

Fires in the tundra are uncommon because the ground is covered in snow and ice for large periods of the year.

Continue reading the main story

Melting can lead to other huge changes... releasing carbon that's been frozen since the Pleistocene”

End Quote Michelle Mack University of Florida Temperatures are low even in summer, and the ground can also remain wet after the ice has melted.

But 2007 saw unusually warm and dry conditions across much of the Arctic - resulting, among other things, in spectacularly fast melting of Arctic sea ice.

This created conditions more conducive to fire, and when lightning struck the tundra in July, the Anaktuvuk River fire ignited.

"Most tundra fires have been very small - this was an order of magnitude larger than the historical size," said Michelle Mack from the University of Florida in Gainesville, who led the research team on the Nature paper and is currently conducting further field studies in Alaska.

"In 2007, we had a hot, dry summer, there was no rain for a long period of time.

"So the tundra must have been highly flammable, with just the right conditions for fire to spread until the snow in October finally stopped it."

Nasa satellites image Arctic ice, water, land - and the Anaktuvuk fire, the black portion at bottom-right

According to the team's calculations, the statistics of the fire are remarkable.

It is the largest on record, doubling the cumulative area burned since 1950.

It put carbon into the atmosphere about 100 times faster than it usually escapes from the ground in the Arctic summer, and released more than 2 million tonnes.

Although a small contribution to global emissions, this is about the same amount as the entire swathe of tundra around the Arctic absorbs in a single year.

The melting of Arctic sea ice suggests 2007's record may be broken this year

There is some vegetation on the summer lands, which did burn; but the main fuel is carbon in the ground itself.

The Anaktuvuk fire burned down to a maximum depth of 15cm (6in), and was burning carbon sequestered away over the last 50 years.

What this implies for the future is uncertain.

Climate models generally predict warmer temperatures across the Arctic, which could increase the frequency of fires and so a net loss of carbon into the atmosphere - reinforcing global warming.

On the other hand, plant life could flourish under these conditions, potentially increasing absorption and sequestering of carbon from the atmosphere.

In a news story published well before the Nature paper came out, another of the US research team, Gaius Shaver from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, said the northern region of Alaska could become "vastly different from the frozen, treeless tundra of today.

"And it's one that may feed back positively to global climate change."

On reflection

Another impact of the fire that has yet to be fully assessed is that the blackened soil absorbs more solar energy than normally vegetated tundra.

This abets melting of the permafrost layer below.

"Once permafrost melts beyond a certain depth on a slope, then all of the organic layer slides down the slope like a landslide," Dr Mack told BBC News.

"This whole issue of melting can lead to other huge changes in drainage, in areas of wetlands - releasing carbon that's been frozen since the Pleistocene [Epoch, which ended more than 10,000 years ago]."

The latest data on Arctic sea ice, meanwhile, reveals that 2011 could well see a melting season that will beat the 2007 record.

Currently, about the same area of sea is covered in ice as at the same point in 2007, which the US National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) ascribes to "persistent above-average temperatures and an early start to [the] melt".

View the original article here