SAN DIEGO — Two ancient skeletons uncovered in 1976 on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean, during construction at the home of a University of California chancellor, may be among the most valuable for genetic analysis in the continental United States. Dated between 9,000 and 9,600 years old, the exceptionally preserved bones could potentially produce the oldest complete human genome from the continent.
But only if scientists aren’t barred from studying them.
EL DORADO HILLS, Calif. – Time has weathered the 36 concrete gravestones in a dusty, half-century-old cemetery tucked away in a corner of California's former gold fields. Time has not erased, however, the bigotry of a bygone era carved into the markers.
The dead, both black and white, had been moved from a Gold Rush-era hamlet known as Negro Hill in the 1950s to make way for a reservoir.
The problem is the way the markers continue to identify them almost 60 years later:
"Unknown. Moved from Nigger Hill Cemetery by U.S. Government - 1954."
Now a handful of activists are trying to get the markers replaced with ones bearing what they say was the original name, Negro Hill.
Compared with other large U.S. cities, Seattle is pretty white.
Along with Portland, Seattle is among large U.S. cities in which the highest proportions of residents describe themselves as non-Hispanic white, based on 2010 census data.
In Seattle, 66 percent of all residents fit that category — the fifth-highest rate among the nation's 50 largest cities — higher even than Wichita, Kan., and Minneapolis.
Seattle rose two notches in the ranking from a decade ago, in part because other cities experienced higher growth in their Latino populations.
Portland's 72 percent white population was the highest in the country, a position unchanged from 10 years ago.
Alone in his hotel room after a solemn dinner with his brother, the newly enlisted Army surgeon took up pen and paper to make the first installment on his promise.
"I have a few moments," he wrote to his wife, just 10 miles up the coast in Lynn. "I am in such a whirl that I can hardly think much less write."
Just four days earlier, on April 12, 1861, Confederate artillery had fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, igniting the Civil War. On April 15, President Abraham Lincoln issued an urgent appeal "to all loyal citizens," seeking 75,000 volunteers to quell the rebellion.
The very next day, Dr. Bowman Bigelow Breed - my great-grandfather - was on a train south, bound for Boston, and for war....
A Rainier Beer bottle. A kitschy ceramic cup and a silver spoon. Thirty-one men's, women's and children's shoes.
No one would be shocked to find these things in any Seattle family's basement. But it's a little more surprising to find them packed under 38 feet of dirt downtown.
Beneath Lake Union's inky surface is a graveyard of old boats, an underwater museum of waterlogged artifacts of Seattle's industrial and maritime history that have mostly lain untouched for decades — until now.
Ruben G. Mendoza is on a quest for light.
The 54-year old archaeologist and professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences at CSU Monterey Bay is seeking the rarest of lights: Early morning rays of the solstice sun, channeled by a centuries-old alchemy of architecture and astronomy, geometry and awe, into brilliant tabernacle illuminations at California's missions.
It's a complex blend of solar geometry and Franciscan cosmology, says Mendoza, in which churches, windows and altars were laid out in relation to the sun's position on a particular day of the year.
Illuminations occur on solstice, equinox or feast day mornings, says Mendoza, with light entering through a particular window and illuminating the tabernacle or an altar bulto, or statue, of a saint in a brilliant column of light.
While the College Board plans to unveil a sweeping revision to Advanced Placement biology courses on Tuesday, it is delaying similar changes in United States history by a year to address concerns from high school teachers.
McLEAN, Va. – Colleagues of a Virginia historian accused of altering a presidential pardon signed by Abraham Lincoln to make it appear he had made a major discovery say he betrayed the trust that had been placed in him.
The accused historian — Thomas P. Lowry, 78, of Woodbridge — denied Tuesday that he actually tampered with the document despite a written confession he gave to the National Archives earlier this month.
WASHINGTON – An amateur Virginia historian is denying allegations by the National Archives that he changed the date on a presidential pardon issued by President Abraham Lincoln.
