Egyptian fruit bats are the latest among the social animals shown to hunker down and perch on their lonesome when ill, potentially reducing infection rates in their community
Archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar and several of her prominent finds. (Hebrew University/Ouria Tadmor)
Leading biblical archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar, 64, died on Tuesday after a long illness.
Known for her discovery of “King David’s palace” in the City of David and biblically tied artifacts and constructions, Mazar was the scion of an Israeli archaeological dynasty. She led excavations in several sites, including most notably in two locations in the City of David ridge: above the Gihon spring and in the “Ophel” on the lower slope of the Temple Mount or Al-Aqsa compound.
Mazar was a field archaeologist, a scholar and a lecturer at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology in Jerusalem where she completed all her degrees. Her finds include some of the earliest known artifacts in the ancient city, dating as far back as the 12th and 11th centuries BCE, according to Mazar, who proposed they provide scientifically excavated evidence of the biblical united monarchy.
Amanda Borschel-Dan is The Times of Israel s Jewish World and Archaeology editor.
Fragment of the rare purple fabric from 1,000 BCE excavated in the Timna Valley. (Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Painting of David anointed king by Samuel, wearing royal purple, from the Dura Europos Synagogue, Syria, 3rd century CE (public domain)
Fragment of the rare purple fabric from 1,000 BCE excavated in the Timna Valley. (Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority)
Species of murex found on Israeli coasts (right to left): Spiny Dye-Murex (Murex brandaris); Banded Dye-Murex (Murex trunculus), and Red-Mouthed Rock-shell (Murex haemastoma) (Shachar Cohen, courtesy of Zohar Amar)
Mushroom and a half, result of wind erosion, in Timna Park (CC via Wiki Commons)
Scientists Worry Mideast Is Threatened By Powerful Future Earthquake
Scientists Worry Mideast Is Threatened By Powerful Future Earthquake
Comments Off on Scientists Worry Mideast Is Threatened By Powerful Future Earthquake
Israelis can add natural disasters to their current worries about COVID-19 and threats from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas.
Now, Israeli researchers are warning a devastating earthquake measuring at least 6.5 on the Richter scale is expected to hit the region in the coming years.
The dire prediction comes from drilling in the Dead Sea to analyze some 220,000 years of underwater geology.
According to the researchers’ analysis, a strong earthquake occurs every 130 to 150 years, although there have also been lulls of a few decades between them.
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Jan. 10, 2021
It’s a charming notion. Sharing meat scraps with wolves in the dead of winter possibly as long as tens of thousands of years ago may have wound up creating man’s best friend, a new paper in Scientific Reports suggests.
Only in winter? No sharing in summer or spring? That’s a twist in the new hypothesis by Maria Lahtinen of the Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki and colleagues, which ties together several facts to reach that startling conclusion: Two species in competition over resources – each capable of killing and eating the other – wound up in love.