One of eastern Europe's busiest transport routes is stuck - literally. The waters of the Danube are so low due to lack of rain that 80 big cargo ships are stranded. The Danube is Europe's second largest river and winds 2,860 kilometers, passing through eight countries before flowing into the Black Sea.The Czech Republic is at its driest since records began in 1775.

Modern humans first arose about 200,000 years ago in Africa but some new research suggests humankind left Africa traveling through the Arabian Peninsula instead of hugging its coasts, as long thought.Over 100 newly discovered sites in the Sultanate of Oman might confirm that modern humans left Africa through Arabia long before genetic evidence suggests - the sites are located far inland. in the Dhofar Mountains of southern Oman, away from the coasts.

The end is not near, at least according to the interpretation of the hieroglyphs by Sven Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia, who says his decoding of a Mayan tablet with a reference to a 2012 date denotes a transition to a new era and not a possible end of the world as others have read it.

A large statue of king Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1390-1352 B.C. and was the grandfather of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, has been unearthed by Egyptian archaeologists.The 44 foot tall statue is made of colored quartzite and is composed of several large pieces that,  once put together, will depict the king as standing.The Supreme Council of Antiquities says the latest find was made at the king's funerary temple in the southern city of Luxor.Statue of Egyptian king Amenhotep III found - The State

I've often said I think it would be a fair trade to swap a three-day waiting period on purchasing handguns if we required a three-day waiting period for science articles in the New York Times along with it.

You may have seen recent McDonald's commercials for its "McRib" sandwich - that means it is back again, just like it has risen from the dead for the last 30 years.  What is a McRib sandwich?  No one knows; it is Chicken McNuggets, except made of pork.   Young people love the things for the same reason some people loved Sigue Sigue Sputnik when I was young; people like things if they become so bad they are good.The McRib, like bad music, does not appear on any predictable schedule - it isn't like a Shamrock Shake, coinciding with a holiday about persistent alcoholism.   So why does it keep appearing?

It’s important that we learn to think critically about one of the most powerful forces in medical research, the placebo effect.It’s also important to realize that even when placebos (placebo is Latin for “I will please”) have a positive impact, the effects can be short-term and end up masking more serious symptoms, preventing people from seeking reliable and effective treatments.In an unusual study from New Zealand, university students who were told they were drinking vodka and tonic, but were really sipping a tonic-only placebo, not only acted drunk but also demonstrated worse eyewitness accounts and were more easily swayed by misleading information.

Scientists in the United States have come up with a tool for automatically analyzing digital photographs, making it possible to gauge the extent to which images have been altered or retouched. Advances in image-manipulation software have made it trivial to radically alter the appearance of models and celebrities in photos, notes Hany Farid, a computer scientist who studies digital forensics and image analysis at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.

Yesterday I linked to an article in Discover stating the marketing for the HPV vaccine for boys was a lot stronger than the evidence.Here are snippets from the follow-up (obviously go read the whole thing for proper context):There are many, many instances in which researchers have promised cures and interventions that were expected to work based on eminently reasonable logic, but did not pan out....

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to read like the dead. Not just to read dead authors—something a little bit creepier. Yes, I am aware that recapturing the actual experiences of long-ago readers is impossible, like visiting Mars or traveling in time. Still, I can’t help reading inscriptions, plucking out old bookmarks, decoding faded marginalia. I catch myself wondering who was reading this a century ago, and where, and why?