Dressed in a suit, this person would not look out of place in a busy street in a modern city.
The clay sculpture, however, portrays the face of the earliest known modern European – a man or woman who hunted deer and gathered fruit and herbs in ancient forests more than 35,000 years ago.
It was created by Richard Neave, one of Britain’s leading forensic scientists, using fossilised fragments of skull and jawbone found in a cave seven years ago.
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s only known pig has been locked in a room, away from visitors to Kabul zoo where it normally grazes beside deer and goats, because people are worried it could infect them with the virus popularly known as swine flu.
The pig is a curiosity in Muslim Afghanistan, where pork and pig products are illegal because they are considered irreligious, and has been in quarantine since Sunday after visitors expressed alarm it could spread the new flu strain.
“For now the pig is under quarantine, we built it a room because of swine influenza,” Aziz Gul Saqib, director of Kabul Zoo, told Reuters. “We’ve done this because people are worried about getting the flu.”
ST. GEORGE – Officials for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are looking into the posthumous baptism of Stanley Ann Dunham, mother of President Barack Obama.
According to published reports, a temple ritual known as “baptism for the dead” was performed June 4, 2008, for Dunham, who died in 1995, in the Provo temple. On June 11, in the same temple, another temple rite known as the “endowment” was performed for Dunham.”The offering of baptism to our deceased ancestors is a sacred practice to us and it is counter to church policy for a church member to submit names for baptism for persons to whom they are not related,” Scott Trotter, a spokesman for the LDS Church, said. “The church is looking into the circumstances of how this happened and does not yet have all the facts. However, this is a serious matter and we are treating it as such.”
[Thanks, Nic!]