Experts find new evidence in submarine mystery

Experts find new evidence in submarine mystery — Researchers say they may have the final clues needed to solve the mystery of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which never resurfaced after it became the first sub in history to sink an enemy warship, taking its eight-man crew to a watery grave.

Scientists said Monday that the Hunley apparently was less than 20 feet away from the Housatonic when the crew ignited a torpedo that sank the Union blockade ship off South Carolina in 1864. That means it may have been close enough for the crew to be knocked unconscious by the explosion, long enough that they may have died before awakening.

FILE - The Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley sits in a conservation tank after a steel truss that had surrounded it was removed in this Jan. 12, 2012 file photo taken at a conservation lab in North Charleston, S.C. Scientists say a pole on the front of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley designed to plant explosives on enemy ships may hold a key clue to its sinking during the Civil War. The experts are to release their findings Monday Jan. 28, 2013 at the North Charleston lab where the hand-cranked sub is being preserved and studied. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith, File)

For years, historians thought the Hunley was much farther away and had speculated the crew ran out of air before they were able to return to shore.

The discovery was based on a recent examination of the spar — the iron pole in front of the hand-cranked sub that held the torpedo.

The Hunley, built in Mobile, Ala., and deployed off Charleston in an attempt to break the Union blockade during the Civil War, was finally found in 1995. It was raised five years later and brought to a lab in North Charleston, where it is being conserved.

Conservator Paul Mardikian had to remove material crusted onto one end of the spar after 150 years at the bottom of the ocean. Beneath the muck he found evidence of a cooper sleeve. The sleeve is in keeping with a diagram of the purported design of a Hunley torpedo that a Union general acquired after the war and is in the National Archives in Washington.

"The sleeve is an indication the torpedo was attached to the end of the spar," Mardikian said. He said the rest of the 16-foot spar shows deformities in keeping with it being bent during an explosion.

Now it may be that the crew, found at their seats when the sub was raised with no evidence of an attempt to abandon ship, may have been knocked out by the concussion of an explosion so close by, said Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell, a member of the South Carolina Hunley Commission.

"I think the focus now goes down to the seconds and minutes around the attack on the Housatonic," he said. "Did the crew get knocked out? Did some of them get knocked out? Did it cause rivets to come loose and the water rush into the hull?"

The final answers will come when scientists begin to remove encrustations from the outer hull, a process that will begin later this year. McConnell said scientists will also arrange to have a computer simulation of the attack created based on the new information. The simulation might be able to tell what effect the explosion would have on the nearby sub.

Maria Jacobsen, the senior archaeologist on the project, said small models might also be used to recreate the attack.

Ironically, the crucial information was literally at the feet of scientists for years.

The spar has long been on display to the public in a case at Clemson University's Warren Lasch Conservation Lab where the Hunley is being conserved. With other priorities on the sub itself, it wasn't until last fall that Mardikian began the slow work of removing encrustations from the spar.

Scientists X-rayed the spar early on and found the denser material that proved to be the cooper sleeve. But Jacobsen said it had long been thought it was some sort of device to release the torpedo itself.

Finding evidence of the attached torpedo is "not only extremely unexpected, it's extremely critical," she said. "What we know now is the weapons system exploded at the end of the spar. That is very, very significant." ( Associated Press )

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105-year-old woman renews driver’s license

105-year-old woman renews driver’s license - 105-year-old Edythe Kirchmaier recently renewed her California drivers license (Facebook)There apparently isn’t much that can slow down Edythe Kirchmaier. The 105-year-old California resident made headlines on Monday when she passed her driving test – continuing 86 years without a blemish on her driving record and maintaining her status as the state's oldest living driver.

"I just couldn't imagine myself without a car," Kirchmaier told FoxNews.com. "It just didn't feel very good."

And that’s far from the only bit of notoriety to crop up recently in Kirchmaier’s life. Facebook has declared her its most senior user, she's the University of Chicago's oldest living former student, last week she appeared on The Ellen Degeneres Show to celebrate her birthday and she has been a volunteer with the Direct Relief International (DRI) organization for 40 years.

To honor Kirchmaier, who says she wants to use her age milestone to help inspire volunteer efforts around the world, DRI set up a Facebook app where her fans can light a virtual candle to help celebrate her 105th birthday. The page includes a short video narrated by "Glee" actress Jane Lynch and has been making the rounds on social media circles, referenced by celebrities and other notable individuals, including Victoria Justice, Ricki Martin journalist Nick Kristof and the musical band Depeche Mode.

Kirchmaier reportedly drives herself to DRI each week, where she leads a team of volunteers.

"I think I’m a pretty good driver," Kirchmaier told Fox. "I feel safe about getting my driver's license renewed because I’ve never had an accident."

READ MORE - 105-year-old woman renews driver’s license

Mysterious Objects Punching Holes In Weird Saturn Ring

Mysterious Objects Punching Holes In Weird Saturn Ring - Mysterious objects appear to be doing some damage to Saturn's "weirdest ring," scientists say.

The discovery comes from detailed photos taken of the Saturn system by NASA's Cassini orbiter. In these images, researchers spotted strange objects about a half-mile (kilometer) wide tearing through Saturn's F ring, the thin outermost discrete ring around the planet.

As they pass through the ring, these interlopers drag glittering ice particles out with them, creating visible trails of debris scientists are calling "mini jets."

New Cassini photos show mini jet trails in Saturn's outermost F ring, likely created by snowballs flying through the icy ring. CREDIT: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/QMUL

"I think the F ring is Saturn's weirdest ring, and these latest Cassini results go to show how the F ring is even more dynamic than we ever thought," Carl Murray, a Cassini imaging team member based at London's Queen Mary University, said in a statement. "These findings show us that the F ring region is like a bustling zoo of objects from a half mile in size to moons like Prometheus a hundred miles in size, creating a spectacular show."

The F ring is held in check by two tiny moons, Prometheus and Pandora, which weave inside and outside the outer ring. Sometimes these moons perturb the ring, creating channels and snowballs. Now scientists think that some of these snowballs survive to become the weird objects punching new holes in the ring.

The objects appear to collide with the ring at mild speeds of about 4 mph (6.4 kph), but can leave relatively long trails extending between 20 to 110 miles long (40 to 180 kilometers).

"The F ring has a circumference of 550,000 miles [881,000 km], and these mini-jets are so tiny they took quite a bit of time and serendipity to find," said Nick Attree, a Cassini imaging associate at Queen Mary. "We combed through 20,000 images and were delighted to find 500 examples of these rogues during just the seven years Cassini has been at Saturn."

The F ring, which stands alone beyond the thick clump of Saturn's main rings, has long puzzled scientists. It was first discovered in the early 1980s by the Voyager probe.

"Voyager found a bright ring, shepherded into a tight orbital corridor by two of Saturn's moons, Prometheus and Pandora, the so-called 'shepherd moons,'" Carolyn Porco, Cassini Imaging team leader, wrote in an email to reporters. "But it was the complexity of this ring that baffled: isolated bright clumps, individual strands, braided regions, kinky segments all seemed at the time to be inexplicable ... Tens of thousands of Cassini images later, we have come finally to understand the intricate workings of this most beguiling ring."

Cassini launched in 1997 as part of the Cassini-Huygens mission, a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Italian Space Agency. The orbiter has been circling the ringed planet since 2004, and is currently on an extended mission until at least 2017.

The researchers are presenting their findings today (April 24) at the European Geosciences Union meeting in Vienna, Austria. ( SPACE.com )

READ MORE - Mysterious Objects Punching Holes In Weird Saturn Ring

Seventy metal books found in cave in Jordan could change our view of Biblical history

Could this be the biggest find since the Dead Sea Scrolls? Seventy metal books found in cave in Jordan could change our view of Biblical history - For scholars of faith and history, it is a treasure trove too precious for price.

This ancient collection of 70 tiny books, their lead pages bound with wire, could unlock some of the secrets of the earliest days of Christianity.

Academics are divided as to their authenticity but say that if verified, they could prove as pivotal as the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947.

Lines of inquiry: The metal tablets could change our understanding of the Bible

On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible’s Book Of Revelation.

The books were discovered five years ago in a cave in a remote part of Jordan to which Christian refugees are known to have fled after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Important documents from the same period have previously been found there.

Initial metallurgical tests indicate that some of the books could date from the first century AD.

Revelation: Experts speculate that the tablets could be the lost collection of codices referred to in the Bible's Book Of Revelation

Hidden meaning: Scrolls, tablets and other artifacts, including an incense bowl, were also found at the same site as the tablets

This estimate is based on the form of corrosion which has taken place, which experts believe would be impossible to achieve artificially.

If the dating is verified, the books would be among the earliest Christian documents, predating the writings of St Paul.

The prospect that they could contain contemporary accounts of the final years of Jesus’s life has excited scholars – although their enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that experts have previously been fooled by sophisticated fakes.

David Elkington, a British scholar of ancient religious history and archeology, and one of the few to have examined the books, says they could be ‘the major discovery of Christian history’.

‘It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church,’ he said.

But the mysteries between their ancient pages are not the books’ only riddle. Today, their whereabouts are also something of a mystery. After their discovery by a Jordanian Bedouin, the hoard was subsequently acquired by an Israeli Bedouin, who is said to have illegally smuggled them across the border into Israel, where they remain.

However, the Jordanian Government is now working at the highest levels to repatriate and safeguard the collection. Philip Davies, emeritus professor of biblical studies at Sheffield University, said there was powerful evidence that the books have a Christian origin in plates cast into a picture map of the holy city of Jerusalem.

A 16th century painting depicting Jesus's death. The metal books contain pages with images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion

X marks the spot: The cave in Jordan where the artifacts were discovered

Dr Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, confirmed that a sealed book is mentioned in the Bible

‘As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck,’ he said. ‘That struck me as so obviously a Christian image. There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city.

‘There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem. It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls.’

The British team leading the work on the discovery fears that the present Israeli ‘keeper’ may be looking to sell some of the books on to the black market, or worse – destroy them.

But the man who holds the books denies the charge and claims they have been in his family for 100 years.

Dr Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, said: ‘The Book of Revelation tells of a sealed book that was opened only by the Messiah.

‘Other texts from the period tell of sealed books of wisdom and of a secret tradition passed on by Jesus to his closest disciples. That is the context for this discovery.’

Groundbreaking find: A section of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were unearthed in 1947

Professor Davies said: ‘The possibility of a Hebrew-Christian origin is certainly suggested by the imagery and, if so, these codices are likely to bring dramatic new light to our understanding of a very significant but so far little understood period of history.’

Mr Elkington, who is leading British efforts to have the books returned to Jordan, said: ‘It is vital that the collection can be recovered intact and secured in the best possible circumstances, both for the benefit of its owners and for a potentially fascinated international audience.’

*British scientists have uncovered up to eight million mummified dogs, thought to have been sacrificed to Anubis, the god of the dead, 2500 years ago after excavating tunnels in the ancient Eygptian city of Saqqara. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - Seventy metal books found in cave in Jordan could change our view of Biblical history

'Earliest known life on Earth' may just be cracks in rock, study finds

'Earliest known life on Earth' may just be cracks in rock, study finds - Twenty years ago scientists hailed the important discovery of the oldest fossils on the planet, 3.5-billion-year-old microbes found embedded in rock in Australia.

But a new analysis of the microscopic structures has returned a surprising result - that they are not biological material at all.

In a new study published in Nature Geoscience, the US scientists suggest they may in fact simply be a series of rock fractures filled with crystals.

A new study claims the so-called fossils found in rock in the Pilbara region of Western Australia do not even contain carbon

The finding suggests that astrobiologists examining distant planets such as Mars must be careful labelling alien objects 'life', when researchers cannot be certain even with the evidence in front of them on Earth.

The Apex Chert formation in Western Australia's Pilbara region had been interpreted as cyanobacteria, once known as blue-green algae.

But the claim that the structures were carbon-based lifeforms has always been controversial, and so geologists from the University of Kansas decided to take another look.

Like previous teams, they cut slices of rock just 300 microns thick - roughly three times the diameter of a human hair - to study under the microscope, but this time added 30 micron sections to allow more light into the sample.

This revealed fractures within the rock that were filled with two unknown materials. Further analysis using a laser identified the mystery minerals were in fact haematite and quartz, neither of which are biological materials.

'It's one of those funny moments in science when you go out to do one thing and it completely flips 180 on you,' co-author Craig Marshall said. 'We discovered things were a little more complex than we thought they would be.'

The scientist who originally interpreted the structures as fossils, J. William Schopf, has prepared a response to the study but it has not yet been published. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - 'Earliest known life on Earth' may just be cracks in rock, study finds

It may be called the kiss of life, but mouth-to-mouth resuscitation could actually be anything

It may be called the kiss of life, but mouth-to-mouth resuscitation could actually be anything - Kiss of death: Does mouth to mouth put lives at risk?- It may be called the kiss of life, but mouth-to-mouth resuscitation could actually be anything but.

According to experts, the treatment can in fact hinder heart attack patients’ chances of survival.

Under current advice, when a patient’s heart stops, first-aiders are told to give 30 chest compressions followed by two breaths into the mouth.

Doctors are so concerned they are calling for the technique to be left out of CPR guidelines for the condition.

This technique is widely taught in schools, offices and to those who help at big sporting events.

But U.S. researchers say giving mouth-to-mouth actually interrupts time which should be spent on chest compressions to keep blood flowing round the body.

If patients are only given chest compressions, survival rates increase by a fifth, they found.

Resuscitation: There are fears it could hinder heart attack patients' chances of survival (Posed by models)

Dr Peter Nagele, of Washington University School of Medicine, in St Louis, said: ‘Our findings support the idea that emergency medical services dispatch should instruct bystanders to focus on chest-compression-only CPR in adults with out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.’

Although CPR, or cardiopulmonary resuscitation, will not restart a heart, it ensures the patient is kept alive by pumping blood around the body to crucial organs.

This is why compressions have to be carried out until an ambulance arrives. Once a victim reaches hospital doctors try to restart their heart with a defibrillator, which delivers an electric shock.

In a study published in the Lancet, the researchers found patients given CPR without mouth-to-mouth had a 22 per cent higher survival rate than those where the technique was included.

However, mouth-to-mouth shouldn’t be removed from the first-aid repertoire altogether, as it can still be effective if a patient stops breathing, but their heart is still beating.

This could include those who are choking, are near to drowning, victims of carbon-monoxide poisoning or those who have taken a drug overdose.

Previous surveys have found that many first-aiders are put off resuscitation as they do not want to give mouth-to-mouth to a stranger.

Although the treatment is an important part of first-aid training, heart attack victims given CPR have just a 10 per cent chance of surviving until they reach hospital. But this trebles their chances when compared to patients who have no resuscitation at all. ( dailymail.co.uk )

READ MORE - It may be called the kiss of life, but mouth-to-mouth resuscitation could actually be anything

'Meteorite' lands on cricket pitch during county match

'Meteorite' lands on cricket pitch during county match - When two spectators standing on the boundary at a cricket match saw an object hurtling down from the sky, their first instinct might have been to applaud.

However Jan Marszel, 51, and Richard Haynes, 52, were not witnessing a six, but an extremely rare meteor strike.

The rock, a few inches long and believed to be up to 4.5 billion years old, broke in two when it hit the ground in front of them close to the pitch.

The pair – both Sussex members – were sitting square of the wicket watching the England player Luke Wright bat with Monty Panesar when they spotted the black, five-inch rock hurtling towards them.

Mr Marszel, an IT consultant, said: “We were sitting at the boundary edge when all of a sudden, out of a blue sky, we saw this small dark object hurtling towards us.

“It landed five yards inside the boundary and split into two pieces.

“One piece bounced up and hit me in the chest and the other ended up against the boundary board.

“It came across at quite a speed – if it had hit me full on it could have been very interesting."

The pair have kept the seemingly extraterrestrial pieces of rock for posterity and said they would be happy for experts to examine them.

Retired Mr Haynes, said: “We were quietly supping our pints, both looked up at the same time and saw a black object coming towards us – we didn’t know what it was.

“If it had come from the other direction we might have suspected someone had thrown it, but we saw it come in straight over the ground from quite a way out – it was definitely a meteorite.”

Dr Matthew Genge, a meteorite expert at Imperial College, London, said: “If this turns out to be a meteorite it’s very exciting and would be the first fall in the UK since 1992.

"Potentially it contains secrets as to the formation of our solar system." ( telegraph.co.uk )

READ MORE - 'Meteorite' lands on cricket pitch during county match

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 4 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 4 ). What's also hard to ascertain is how the two Torahs Youlus says he found in a mass grave in Ukraine wound up in the hands of five different buyers.

The first was Martin Ingall, 50, of Potomac, who reported Youlus's discovery to the Jewish genealogical newsletter. Its August, 2001, issue states that Ingall, president of Technology Information in Rockville, bought one of the two Torahs and suggested that someone else might want the second. After reading this, Kushner then purchased what Youlus told him was the second scroll.

Rabbi Menachem Youlus regales believers with dramatic stories of Holocaust-era scrolls he says he has rescued and restored. But are his tales true?

But another Pennsylvania couple, Phyllis and David Malinov, also read the notice and felt a tug on their heartstrings. Phyllis, 71, knew her mother had immigrated from Kamenets-Podolsk. So the couple, a teacher and a physician, headed off to the Wheaton bookstore. After they told Youlus about their family connection to the town, David Malinov, 72, recalls, the scribe "was in favor of our receiving the Torah."

They paid about $10,000, they say, for what Youlus told them was one of two Torahs, and took it back to their Jewish fellowship group in Pike County, Pa. Around the same time, the Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center outside Baltimore, which caters to Jewish organizations, was looking for a Torah.

The center's executive director, Carol Pristoop, wrote down the incredible story that Youlus told the Pearlstone donors, who paid $10,000 for the scroll. She saved her notes, which state the Pearlstone Torah is one of two found in a mass grave.

Hantman also remembers Youlus telling her that her Westchester County congregation was receiving one of two Torahs from the mass grave. Youlus declines to explain how five parties believed they had one of these two Torahs. But Zitelman says: "There's a total of eight Torahs -- two that were in the mass grave and six that were from the general community. I don't know what Rabbi Youlus said specifically to anybody."

When Hantman hears about the mystically multiplying Torahs, she pauses and says she has to gather her thoughts: "I hope you've read 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' At the end, a truth is concealed for the better good of the community. ... If there is any deception going on ... also think about what he's done that's good." She wrestles with what she has heard. "Destroying this man, if he is guilty of what you suspect, may very well be in service of the truth but in disservice of a greater truth," Hantman says. What, for Hantman, is the greater truth? "The Jewish reverence for the past, for heritage and for those who suffered and died because of the Nazis."

Clark University professor Deborah Dwork, co-author of a history of Auschwitz, says she has an "allergic reaction" to the notion of a greater truth, because, she says, such tales can play into the hands of Holocaust deniers. For her, the historical record must be "absolutely crystal clear. Anything that deviates from that one whit does the memory of the Holocaust a huge disservice," she says.

So why have so many of Youlus's customers accepted his dramatic rescue stories without evidence? Is it because he carries the title "Rabbi"? Or is it because so many unimaginable things did happen during the Holocaust? Perhaps, as sociologist Samuel Heilman says: "There's a sensitivity because of Holocaust denial. If you say some stories aren't true, you may have to say that all stories are not true.

So best not to touch on a sensitive topic." Heilman -- who has written numerous books about Jewish communities and is a professor at City University of New York -- suggests that some American Jews feel guilty: "They didn't manage to rescue the people, so they rescue the Torahs." Dwork has her own theory: "The loss was so devastating that we crave tales of survival."

***

David Rubenstein does not want any lingering doubts about provenance to taint the Torah he donated to New York's Central Synagogue, or another scroll he donated to the Sixth & I Historic Synagogue in downtown Washington. Youlus said that Torah was read by inmates at the Dachau concentration camp.

But the archivist at Dachau, Albert Knoll, says he has no record of a Torah being smuggled into the camp. After Rubenstein was told that experts questioned the stories about the Torahs, he hired noted Holocaust historian Michael Berenbaum, 64, to investigate. Berenbaum, a former director of the research institute at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, spent an hour and a half with Youlus, spoke with people in Poland and searched through archives and oral histories. "Based on Dr. Berenbaum's investigation," Rubenstein wrote in a September e-mail, "we cannot fully and unquestionably establish that the Torahs are what I had been led to believe." Rubenstein asked Berenbaum to find Torahs "whose Holocaust provenance is not in question.

When such Torahs are located and secured, I will donate them to the synagogues -- to ensure they will have what I originally intended them to have." Since then, Berenbaum says, he has secured a replacement Torah for Central Synagogue from a Romanian collection recently transferred to Israel. Sixth & I will receive a scroll from Poland. The Carlyle Group reports that Rubenstein is also paying for the restoration of a historic building for Jewish youth in Poland "as a sign of goodwill and appreciation."

As for Youlus's Torah rescue stories, Berenbaum came to his own conclusion. "A psychiatrist might say they are delusional. A historian might say they are counter-factual. A pious Jew might call them midrash -- the stories we tell to underscore the deepest truths we live," he says. Midrash, in this context, refers to the ancient tradition of rabbis telling anecdotes and fables to convey a moral lesson. "Myth underscores the deepest truth we live," Berenbaum says.

But for Kushner, who to honor his father bought a Torah he believed was from a mass grave, "It's better that I should know the truth than I should go on the rest of my life believing in a myth."

Rabbi to the Rescue: Menachem Youlus is called the Indiana Jones of Torah recovery and restoration. But there are doubts about his thrilling tales.

( washingtonpost.com )

READ MORE - But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 4 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 3 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 3 ). In the spring of 2008, Central Synagogue, a prominent temple in Manhattan, dedicated another of Youlus's rescued Torahs. This one came with an iconic name attached. Youlus says he secretly unearthed it in Oswiecim -- the Polish town made infamous by its German name, Auschwitz. Oswiecim Jews, Youlus said, buried this Torah in a metal box in their cemetery to save it from the Nazis.

More than six decades later, he told the New York Times, he located the scroll with a metal detector and dug it up. But it was missing four parchment panels. The local Jews removed these panels, he said, before burying the Torah, and later somehow spirited the fragments into the camp. Youlus says he placed an ad in a local newspaper offering to pay for parchment with Hebrew writing on it. Miraculously, a priest -- a former Auschwitz prisoner -- responded the very next day and sold him four panels that proved to be an exact match.

Central Synagogue's rabbi, Peter Rubinstein, acknowledges that he was initially baffled as to how the parchment had come into the camp. But he did not seek an independent appraisal or ask for documentation. Rubinstein says he ultimately trusted Youlus, and he trusted the man who had purchased the Torah and wanted to donate it to Central Synagogue.

That donor was David Rubenstein (no relation to the rabbi) of the Carlyle Group, the D.C.-based private equity firm. The billionaire philanthropist -- who has lent a copy of the Magna Carta to the National Archives -- was not a member of Central Synagogue. But he came well recommended by a congregant: Arthur Levitt, the former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman. "That's how the connection was made," Rabbi Rubinstein recalls. "That's how the world works." As he remembers, donor David Rubenstein "said he wanted exposure for the scroll in New York."

So with great fanfare, the Torah from Auschwitz was dedicated in New York on Holocaust Remembrance Day 2008. Months later, on the Jewish New Year, the congregation again took the Torah down from its imposing two-tiered ark. In his sermon, Rabbi Rubinstein repeated the story of the Torah's wondrous rescue from the killing fields of Oswiecim. Reflecting back on that homily, he says: "Remember, this was two days after the market dropped 700 points, and I was trying to talk about retrenching, not financial retrenching, [but] what are the things that are the anchors of our lives."

Reached for comment about the Auschwitz Torah, Poland's chief rabbi, American Michael Schudrich, responds in an e-mail: "I cannot confirm anything that Menachem has written. I do not know the people he is referring to." Youlus's discovery is also a mystery to Tomasz Kuncewicz, director of the Auschwitz Jewish Center, which cares for the Oswiecim cemetery, and to Dorota Wiewiora, head of the tiny Jewish community still living in the region. She is dismayed at the idea that someone would dig among human remains. And, Wiewiora adds, if such a Torah really was dug up, it would rightfully be the property of her community. "No one would sell it. It's not ethical."

Asked why no one in Oswiecim knew about his ad hoc archaeological dig, Youlus changes major details of the story he told Central Synagogue and the New York Times. He says the box containing the Torah was not made of metal, though he can't say exactly what the material was. Youlus says he simply took an educated guess as to where it was buried, hired a crew to dig and found it in the ground beyond the old cemetery walls. As for the priest who supplied the missing parchment panels, Youlus didn't find him through a classified ad. He says his great aunt -- friends with an unidentified Polish cardinal -- helped find the priest. What was the priest's name? "I have no idea," Youlus says. According to the Archdiocese of Krakow, the last local priest who survived Auschwitz died years before Youlus says he arrived on the scene in 2004.

In a 3-hour interview, Youlus is unable to provide a single name, date, place, photograph or document to back up the Auschwitz stories or any of the others. He says that until Save a Torah was founded in 2004, he kept no records. He refers all requests for documentation since then to the foundation's president, investment banker Rick Zitelman of Rockville.

But in a late December meeting at The Washington Post, Zitelman, 54, shows no documentation for any of the scrolls, despite requests. Zitelman says the only paperwork he gets from Youlus is an invoice the rabbi himself writes up for each Torah. He says Youlus does not submit any airline tickets or hotel receipts for overseas missions. So where does he think Youlus finds the Torahs? "It's my understanding these Torahs come from various locations, including monasteries, museums, antique shops, private owners and other places like that," he says.

Eastern European countries consider the scrolls their cultural property and severely restrict their export. Zitelman says, in a follow-up e-mail: "These Torahs do not belong to the people/organizations/museums/churches that hold them. They belonged to synagogues or Jewish communities or families that were destroyed or killed during the Holocaust. ... These stolen Torahs are no different than art that was stolen from Jews by the Nazis and others, and is now being returned to its rightful owners."

Many state museums and archives in Eastern Europe -- including some in former monasteries -- do hold hundreds of scrolls. And half a dozen major Jewish organizations, backed by the U.S. State Department, have been pressing governments in the region to return them to Jewish hands in an orderly fashion. Wesley Fisher, director of research for the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, is working on the issue. He acknowledges that the slow pace of negotiations "leads many people to think, 'Well, they should just be taken.' " But he says he believes the Jewish people should not "repeat theft," and with the revival of Jewish life in the region, it's "not a matter for individuals to decide in cowboy-like fashion" who should have these scrolls. Such decisions should be made in consultation with local communities, he says. Fisher adds: "I'm not aware that Save a Torah is actually trying to deal with Torahs that are held in government hands in the countries of Eastern Europe."

Jews in Ukraine report that Torahs periodically disappear from museum shelves -- sold privately by corrupt curators -- and end up overseas. Youlus is aware of these shadowy dealings: "I think that there is a gray market in some of these areas. And I am very, very careful whom I deal with." But he won't name the people with whom he deals, so, for now, the source of his old Torahs remains murky.

It's not hard to determine where most Holocaust Torahs in American synagogues come from. Most are on loan from a collection of Czech Judaica gathered at the Jewish Museum in Prague during World War II and later sold to a philanthropist in London. The wartime curators meticulously labeled the town of origin of each of those Torahs. Establishing the provenance of other scrolls, though, can be tricky. The text of the Torah is immutable. Scribes never sign their name, the date or the place where they have penned the scroll. Judging by the calligraphy, the parchment and sometimes the penmanship, experts can estimate within a few decades a scroll's age and region of origin. But even if a Torah is determined to have been written in Europe before the Holocaust, there is no way to tell simply by looking at it where it has been since it was written. It's not hard to find old Torahs for sale: Synagogues close; congregations consolidate and sell off scrolls. And many of the old scrolls come from either Eastern Europe or scribes who trained there. EBay has pages of listings. Some old scrolls for sale, indeed, may be survivors of vanished Jewish communities, but it's hard to say for sure. ( washingtonpost.com )

***

READ MORE - But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 3 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 2 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 2 ). At her white clapboard home in Somers, N.Y., Rabbi Shoshana Hantman, 51, takes a large scroll out of a custom-made, portable ark in her living room, rolls it out on her dining room table and shoos away her Siamese cat as it threatens to tread on the sacred parchment.

"This is our old guy," Hantman says, as she prepares to tell the story of the Torah that Youlus sold to her congregation at the time, the Reconstructionist Group of Southern Westchester.

Her tale is almost identical to the one Kushner says Youlus told him. Hantman says she got in touch with Youlus in the summer of 2001 as she was preparing for her small worship group's first High Holy Day services. The member needed a Torah but couldn't afford the $25,000 or more for a new one. So she phoned Youlus and soon found herself captivated by his "angelic presence." "This was an Orthodox rabbi, you understand. Orthodox rabbis don't normally even speak to the likes of me," the clergywoman says. "He didn't only talk to me, he referred to me as 'rabbi.' So I already knew this was a special guy."

Youlus recounted how he had rescued the Torah -- one of a pair, Hantman recalls, that he discovered in the Ukrainian mass grave. The scribe offered the scroll to Hantman's congregation for $6,000. Hantman recalls that Youlus was finishing the Torah's restoration on Sept. 11. She remembers Youlus telling her that he was a member of a Jewish burial society and had to rush to the Pentagon to retrieve the remains of Jewish victims. "And in the middle of it, he [finished] this Torah," Hantman marvels.

The story of that Torah's rescue from the ashes of the Holocaust had special resonance that Rosh Hashanah, when smoke was still rising from Ground Zero. Several members of Hantman's worship group worked at the World Trade Center. Some would find an even closer connection to the story. Hantman recalls: "Once a gentleman came up and said his father was from Kamenets-Podolsk, and he just wanted to touch the scroll because it might have been his father's, and he had [lost] people. People have said that they felt -- you know, very mystical people -- that they felt emanations. ..."

***

Seated at a laminate table covered with scrolls in his bookstore -- the headquarters for his operation -- Youlus explains the spiritual charge he gets from supplying Torahs, new and restored, to congregations around the United States and overseas. "I've been to so many Torah dedications, and it never gets old," he explains, "because it's a chance to establish a special bond between God's chosen people and God." Around him, the Wheaton shop's two rooms overflow with books and Judaica: prayer shawls, menorahs, children's games, stickers and tchochkes. In the rear, several dozen antique Torah scrolls, many wrapped in black trash bags, lie on a set of shelves awaiting repair.

Customers, including local Jewish clergy, frequently interrupt Youlus, in person and over the phone. He greets everyone with a cheery, high-pitched "Hello" and punctuates the air with emphatic hand gestures. His life outside the bookstore is just as busy, he says: "Last week, I was in Europe once and on the West Coast twice."

As the store's clerk takes scrolls off the shelf and lays them gently on a table, Youlus eagerly describes the mechanics of being a scribe. He shows off turkey quills, used to write Torahs, bits of klaf (parchment) and explains the intense spiritual concentration required of his profession. Youlus says he uses high-tech infrared equipment to inspect the condition of the scrolls and "climate-controlled" ink to restore them. Touting his expertise in dating parchment, Youlus says he has studied with curators "in Europe," but pressed to say with whom he has studied, he won't give names. Ner Israel Rabbinical College in Baltimore confirms that Youlus graduated with a degree in Talmudic Law and was ordained in 1983. He also studied accounting at Towson State University.

On his Save a Torah promotional video, posted on the Web in 2007, Youlus says he has rescued 500 Torahs since he began his mission a quarter-century ago. The number Youlus gives on this spring afternoon in 2009 has soared to 1,100.

The fundraising video describes Youlus's rescue operation in dramatic fashion. While a violin plays a mournful tune, supporters give testimonials. The screen flashes archival photos of concentration camp barracks and piles of desecrated Torah scrolls. The message is clear: Make a donation so Youlus can parachute in, rescue these fragile survivors and breathe new life into the ancient text known as the Tree of Life.

One testimonial comes from Rabbi Leila Gal Berner of Kol Ami, a Reconstructionist community in Northern Virginia. Cradling a Torah from Youlus, Gal Berner, 59, relates its remarkable history. "There was a legend of a Torah scroll that had been hidden under the floorboards at Bergen-Belsen [the German concentration camp]. Menachem came to Bergen-Belsen on a tour and literally fell into a hole in the corner of the floorboards, felt something strange, suspected that this might be where it was. It was dug up. Indeed it was the Torah, fully there. After some negotiations, Rabbi Youlus was able to purchase the Torah." For Gal Berner, rescuing a scroll like hers means "that community didn't die when Hitler tried to kill it."

But Youlus's discovery at Bergen-Belsen comes as news to the historian at the camp museum. "I can definitely exclude that there could have been a find of the Torah scroll on the grounds of the Bergen-Belsen Memorial" in recent years, writes Thomas Rahe. In 1945, British troops burned down all the barracks to stop the spread of typhus.

Asked in the shop about his Bergen-Belsen adventure, Youlus at first jokes about his dumb luck -- being a "schlemiel" and literally stumbling on a holy treasure. Confronted with the camp historian's denial, he shoots back: "It's not Bergen-Belsen. ... She [Gal But there are doubts about his thrilling tales. ( 2 ). Berner] says it was Bergen-Belsen." Which camp was it? He can't remember: He says he has toured so many concentration camp sites. Why did he allow Gal Berner to tell this story on the video? He says he's never watched it.

Gal Berner -- a historian who has taught at leading universities -- stands by Youlus even after being informed of the facts and of Youlus's denial. In an e-mail, she skirts the question of what the scribe told her about the Torah's origins. "I believe that Rabbi Youlus is an honest man who is doing holy work," she says. "I believe that he must navigate complicated territory in order to find and rescue the Torah scrolls he finds." ( washingtonpost.com )

***

READ MORE - But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 2 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 1 )

But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 1 ). In October of 2001, Robert Kushner of Pittsburgh received an e-mail that got his heart racing. His nephew had come across a notice in a Jewish genealogical newsletter about a mass grave discovered outside the Ukrainian town of Kamenets-Podolsk.

Along with the remains of Jews killed in the Holocaust, the grave contained two sacred Torah scrolls, one of them wrapped in a "Gestapo body bag." A Maryland man had bought one Torah, the newsletter said, but the second scroll needed a home.

Kamenets-Podolsk was the town from which Kushner's father had emigrated in 1920. One of his father's sisters never left, and Kushner, 74, wondered, "Could her body be one of those buried in that mass grave?" He contacted the man who had made this horrific yet miraculous find: Rabbi Menachem Youlus, co-owner of the Jewish Bookstore of Greater Washington. Kushner and his wife traveled to the bookstore in Wheaton and found themselves charmed by the slightly built, chatty Orthodox rabbi.

"We literally fell in love with him," Kushner says. "He exudes honesty, integrity. He's as pleasant as could be."

Youlus showed the Kushners the antique scroll and recounted his adventure: While traveling in Ukraine, Youlus was approached by an unnamed farmer who offered to sell him a handwritten map. As Kushner remembers the story, the farmer said he had been told by his father that if he ever encountered anyone wearing a skullcap, he should show him the map. The farmer led Youlus to his land, which had a pigsty built on a foundation of Jewish gravestones. Seeing Hebrew writing on the map, Youlus bought it and went off with the farmer to a spot marked on it.

The rabbi started digging and uncovered a mass grave containing the bones of more than 200 people, as well as two relatively intact Torahs. He and his driver reburied the human remains and marked each individual grave with verses from the Book of Psalms. Months later, Youlus -- who is also a Torah scribe -- restored the Torahs to kosher condition so they could once again be read in synagogues.

Hearing this story, Kushner felt moved to buy the Torah, which was still for sale. He'd grown up poor. His immigrant father couldn't afford the big donation some synagogues used to request for the privilege of reciting Torah blessings during the High Holy Days. Choking up, Kushner recalls: "When this Torah became available, I said, 'You know what? I can't think of a better way to honor my father's memory.' " Youlus told the Kushners that several people had expressed interest in the Torah, but the scribe wanted them to have it, because "that's where your father was born; that's where his siblings were born." Kushner paid $15,000 for the scroll, which he donated to his synagogue, Beth El Congregation in Pittsburgh. He fondly remembers the dedication. "It was a beautiful ceremony. I spoke, my son spoke, through tears." Later, his grandson read from the Torah at his bar mitzvah.

For something buried underground for 60 years, the Torah was in remarkably good condition. The rabbi never showed Kushner any photos of the excavation or of the scroll before its restoration, or the farmer's map. Kushner, a retired lawyer, acknowledges that he was initially skeptical. "You know, the story itself is so bizarre. ... I did not know Menachem at that time, and I guess there was something in my voice," Kushner says.

At Youlus's suggestion, Kushner called an Orthodox rabbi in Pittsburgh for a character reference. Kushner's sister called family friends in Maryland who also vouched for Youlus. When Kushner told his own rabbi about the background checks, the rabbi's reaction was: "You know what? You've done far more than you need to do. If a sofer [Torah scribe] tells you a story, you can believe him."

***

Rabbi Menachem Youlus has found scores of enthusiastic believers and willing buyers. Dubbed "The Indiana Jones of Torah Scribes," Youlus has regaled congregations and the media (including this newspaper in 2004) with tales of cloak-and-dagger adventures in Central and Eastern Europe. The 48-year-old rabbi from Baltimore says he has found Torahs hidden in walls, buried in the ground, piled in basements of monasteries, even under the floorboards of a concentration camp barracks. He says he has been beaten up, threatened with jail in Siberia, and has had to smuggle out Torahs in false-bottom suitcases.

"I guess you can say I'm on a mission," explains Youlus, who wears a neatly trimmed beard and the white shirt, black trousers and black yarmulke favored by the ultra-Orthodox. His stated mission, supported by the nonprofit Save a Torah Inc., is to recover, repair and resettle sacred scrolls from Jewish communities destroyed by the Nazis. His rescued Torahs have found their way into more than three dozen congregations in the Washington area and beyond.

Billionaire investor David Rubenstein, 60, co-founder and managing director of the Carlyle Group, purchased two of these scrolls. He says, via e-mail, "I donated these Torahs to the synagogues so their congregants could have the sacred experience of reading scripture from scrolls that had survived the Holocaust."

The Torah is Judaism's most sacred text -- the first five books of the Hebrew Bible -- painstakingly handwritten on animal-skin parchment according to a strict set of rules. It is venerated as the core of Jewish worship and the basis for centuries of Jewish scholarship. Jews treat the Torah with the respect due an important person, standing when it is taken out of its ark and is carried in a synagogue. There's a tradition among some Jews of ransoming stolen Torahs, and scrolls damaged beyond repair are buried in a cemetery.

The stories Youlus has told over the years resonate so powerfully because they meld this centerpiece of the Jewish religion with the cataclysm of the Holocaust, providing a reassuring sense of continuity and hope. As survivors, Youlus's Torahs are brought out for Holocaust Remembrance Day, they're used to teach lessons in religious schools, and for many people, such as Robert Kushner, they have become part of a deeply personal family narrative. Youlus says in a video on the Save a Torah Web site: "Every single Torah that I rescued has a story." ( washingtonpost.com )

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READ MORE - But there are doubts about his thrilling tales ( 1 )

Hon, I Love You But...

Hon, I Love You But... Hey, it's hard to be honest with your partner sometimes. Why tell the person you love something that might make them unhappy? (Well, because if you decide, “I’ll just keep this to myself” all the time, you're going to implode.) Here's how to be straight up without chucking that sensitivity chip.

Don't publicize it.

Your spouse doesn’t want to hear it’s high time they cut back on the beer -- but it will be a lot easier to handle if you suggest skipping the suds more often when it’s just the two of you at home as opposed to crying out, “Not for him!” when the waiter offers you refills during dinner with another couple.

Time it right.

News (particularly bad news) can take some time to process. If you know your partner has a big meeting the next morning, right before he goes to sleep isn’t the moment to reveal that you're dead sure that his mother has never liked you and you’d prefer she didn’t come to visit. Um, ever.

Don’t stall.

If the issue is financial concerns or other time-sensitive matters, pipe up now, because the perfect moment will never come. Better they know about a broken budget now than find out by seething over late penalties on your credit card bills.

Be quick.

It’s like ripping off a Band-Aid -- do it fast and simple. If you’re admitting a bummer of your own (“My account is overdrawn”), over-talking can seem like you’re making excuses. If it’s something that can be construed as criticism (“It would be great if you tried foreplay”), yammering on about it will just make them feel attacked.

Clean up your own backyard.

Uh, is it really fair to hit your spouse below the belt if you've excess baggage of your own? If you don’t have your own bad habits under control, prepare get that criticism hurled back in your face. So reframe it: If it's obvious that you both need to take better care of yourselves physically, say, “I think we should start hitting the gym.” They may still gripe, but at least they’ll know you're in it together. ( thenest.com )

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Married to a Metrosexual

Married to a Metrosexual. I married a man who used bar soap to wash his hair. But in less than four years of marriage, my formerly rugged he-man has turned into a deep conditioner-loving, hot stone massage-enjoying metro. Don’t believe me? At a party, I overheard Adam saying the best part of his weekly basketball game is the bubble bath afterward.

I fully take the blame. The poor man has been marinating in beauty ever since he met me! I’m a former beauty editor and started my own blog called Shake Your Beauty (on ShakeYourBeauty.com), so being fascinated by cosmetics is part of my job. At first, he thought the whole thing was hilarious. “Why is a body scrub necessary in life, Tia? Don’t you need your skin?” Then he'd roll his eyes and go back to ESPN.

But all that changed one fateful night a few summers ago. To celebrate their new overnight cream, a legendary skin care brand invited beauty editors and their plus-ones to spend the night at a swanky hotel room stocked with their very best products. Adam and I had planned to go, but I was traveling for work that day and my flight back home was canceled. The worst part? My cell phone was down and I couldn’t reach Adam! I spent a miserable night in a dingy airport hotel, working myself up into a big stress-fit because Adam was worried sick about his missing wife.

Oh, but I shouldn’t have bothered. An hour after I got home the next morning, Adam swanned through our front door, grinning and looking impossibly radiant. While I’d had the night from hell trying to get back home, he’d slept over at the hotel, lounging around in a plush, terrycloth robe and sampling a variety of face masks, shower gels and body oils. “My life has changed,” he announced, and then he spent a half hour raving about the brilliance of toner. Yes, toner.

From that day on, Adam had a newfound appreciation—no, obsession—with all things pampering. I’m still irritated about the whole hotel weekend fiasco, but I must admit, I do love that I can share my excitement over a fabulous new Kiehl’s product or seaweed serum with my husband. I just wish he’d stop stealing my conditioner. ( thenest.com )

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'Weird Creatures' Host Nick Baker Meets a Mole Lizard

'Weird Creatures' Host Nick Baker Meets a Mole Lizard. If you're not watching Weird Creatures on the Science Channel, you're missing out on some truly bizarre stuff.

From the rainforests of Borneo to the Australian outback, host Nick Baker explorers some of the remotest corners of the Earth every Wednesday at 9PM. On last week's premier episode of the third season, Nick flew to Australia just after breeding time for a rare sighting of an extremely endangered fish — the leafy seahorse.

On the next show, he drives to Mexico's Baja peninsula in search of the elusive mole lizard. We caught up with Nick for a few questions about his experiences shooting and exploring for Weird Creatures.

Science Channel

"Weird Creatures" host Nick Baker holds a three-toed sloth

FoxNews.com: How do you choose which creatures to spotlight?

Nick Baker: It's quite easy really: I've always been sticking up for the biological underdog and I've got one of those filing cabinet brains that remembers seemingly pointless things — the consequence is a 'head library' full of odd, unusual and ugly creatures amassed over 30 plus years of being me.

Some of my quests have been almost childlike odysseys to answer a question, such as 'does the Candiru fish really swim up and lodge itself in those sensitive parts of a human's anatomy? Does it fit? Is it physically possible? and then the obvious one: Why?

Others are more recent. I might be flicking through a scientific journal, wildlife magazine or field guide to an exotic country and I see something that I've not noticed before — if it passes the initial 'it's a freak' test then onto the list of Weird Creatures it goes.

Thenext part is filtering the list down. Usually this involves me and the production team sitting around a table hammering it out, until we have a list of animals that we all agree are weird but we realistically stand a chance (even a slim one) of filming in the 10 days or so it takes to make each episode.

FoxNews.com: What sort of pets does a guy like you have? I’m thinking three-toed sloths….

Nick: I have loads of pets (in the loosest sense of the word). I have in the region of 60 snakes — ranging from large Boas and Pythons to some of my favorites, the odd and slightly unusual sand boas, which incidentally make rubbish pets as they spend all of their time buried under the soil!

I have a few tarantulas, scorpions, various cockroaches, preying mantids, snapping turtles, big-headed turtles ... and at the moment I'm breeding some giant Asian silk moths on my office desk.

The Mexican salamander the Axolotl is an animal I've bred for some 30 years of my life, but recently I discovered they are in big trouble in the wild. So as part of this series I headed to Mexico City (the only place on Earth that this animal is native) and discovered a story that really moved me: This film may be the last one made of the wild animal before it goes extinct!

I'm also in the process of writing a book called Bug Zoo for DK books, which involves me keeping many smaller common garden creepy crawlies. This bug zoo is currently taking over my spare room! I don't have dogs or cats — I'm allergic to the former and the latter eat the wildlife that I'm rather fond of in my garden!

FoxNews.com: Any creatures you regret having tracked down? Too ugly, too mean, too dirty…

Nick: None of the creatures have been too weird, ugly, or too disgusting to film. The whole point of the series is to show people creatures that rarely make the limelight. Give them a biological freak show on one hand, but with the other we point out some of evolution's unsung heroes.

The show is part a celebration of biological diversity and sometimes a heavier message of conservation and extinction. The weirder the better, as weird is what weird does. If you look odd, by definition you are different, which means you've got a good back story — either you've taken off down some evolutionary line in response to an extreme environment or as a solution to a particular survival challenge.

The only thing that holds us back is how much time we can invest in the film — there's a planet of extraordinary creatures out there even stranger than the ones we've filmed so far, it's just they are so far from the travelled path or so rare that getting a glimpse becomes a massive logistical challenge.

I'm not done yet though; there's plenty more material out there although for some it will be a race against time as the odd and ugly ones don't generate much in the way of conservation sympathy!

FoxNews.com: On your trip through Mexico for this premier episode, did you guys run into the chupacabra?

Nick: No, we didn't see the chupacabra. We did see a few mangy dogs though!! It's amazing how weird a familiar fluffy looks without its fluff — which is ultimately what I feel this modern cryptozoological phenomena is! Foxnews.com

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Ancient Mystery of Nascan Disappearance Solved

Ancient Mystery of Nascan Disappearance Solved. The ancient South American Nasca civilization may have caused its own demise by clear-cutting huge swaths of forest, a new study has found.

The civilization disappeared mysteriously around 1,500 years ago, after apparently prospering during the first half of the first millennium A.D. in the valleys of south coastal Peru. Scientists have previously suggested a massive El Niño event disrupted the climate and caused the Nasca's demise, but new research suggests that deforestation may have also played an important role.

The Nasca are best known for leaving behind large geoglyphs called Nazca lines carved into the surface of the vast, empty desert plain that lies between the Peruvian towns of Nazca and Palpa. Though the lines have spawned many interpretations, including the suggestion that they were created by aliens, most scholars now think they were sacred pathways that Nasca people followed during their ancient rituals.

The enigmatic society that once flourished apparently collapsed around 500 A.D. after a bloody resource war. To investigate this event a team of archaeologists led by David Beresford-Jones from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the U.K.'s Cambridge University gathered plant remains in the lower Ica Valley. Based on this evidence and pollen samples collected by co-researcher Alex Chepstow-Lusty of the French Institute of Andean Studies in Lima, the scientists found that the Nasca cleared huge areas of forest to make way for agriculture. The native huarango tree, which once covered what is now a desert area, was gradually replaced by crops such as cotton and maize.

This vital tree was a crucial part of the desert’s fragile ecosystem, serving to enhance soil fertility and moisture and help hold the Nasca’s narrow, vulnerable irrigation channels in place.

Eventually, the people cut down so many trees that they reached a tipping point at which the arid ecosystem was irreversibly damaged, the researchers found. At this point a major El Niño event likely occurred, triggering floods made much worse by the lack of forests that used to protect the delicate desert ecology.

Dreamstime

The huarango tree species is a vital part of the sensitive desert ecosystem in the Ica valley

"These were very particular forests," Beresford-Jones said. "The huarango is a remarkable nitrogen-fixing tree and it was an important source of food, forage, timber and fuel for the local people. Furthermore, it is the ecological ‘keystone’ species in this desert zone, enhancing soil fertility and moisture, ameliorating desert extremes in the microclimate beneath its canopy and underpinning the floodplain with one of the deepest root systems of any tree known. In time, gradual woodland clearance crossed an ecological threshold — sharply defined in such desert environments — exposing the landscape to the region’s extraordinary desert winds and the effects of El Niño floods."

Without the huarango cover, when El Niño did strike, the river down-cut into its floodplain, Nasca irrigation systems were damaged and the area became unworkable for agriculture. This finding fits with other evidence that shows that the generations that came afterwards did not fare as well as their predecessors: infant mortality rose, while average adult life expectancy fell. The crops cultivated by their ancestors disappeared in the lower Ica Valley and the area was probably afflicted by a severe drought.

The research also stresses the importance of huarango woodlands for sustaining livelihoods and creating fertile areas in these environments. There are now no undisturbed ecosystems in the region and what remains of the old-growth huarango forests is being destroyed in illegal charcoal-burning operations.

"The mistakes of prehistory offer us important lessons for our management of fragile, arid areas in the present," said co-author Oliver Whaley of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England.

The new study is detailed in the journal Latin American Antiquity. Foxnews.com

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