India finds more 'tsunami gifts'
Divers have been scouring the site for three years
Indian divers have found more evidence of an ancient port city, apparently revealed by December's tsunami. Stone structures that are "clearly man-made" were seen on the seabed off the south coast, archaeologists say.
They could be part of the mythical city of Mahabalipuram, which legend says was so beautiful that the gods sent a flood that engulfed six of its seven temples.
Other relics were revealed when the powerful waves washed away sand as they smashed into the Tamil Nadu coast.
'Clear pattern'
The Archaeological Survey of India launched the diving expedition after residents reported seeing a temple and other structures as the sea pulled back just before the tsunami hit.
The new finds were made close to the 7th Century beachfront Mahabalipuram temple, which some say is the structure that survived the wrath of the gods.
"We've found some stone structures which are clearly man-made," expedition leader Alok Tripathi told the AFP news agency.
"They're perfect rectangular blocks, arranged in a clear pattern."
The ancient "gifts" of the tsunami are expected to be presented to an international seminar on maritime archaeology in Delhi next month.
Other discoveries made at Mahabalipuram earlier this month include a granite lion of a similar age to the temple that experts believe had been buried for centuries before the tsunami shifted the sand.
Archaeologists have been working at the site for the last three years, since another diving expedition discovered what appeared to be a submerged city, including at least one temple.
The myths of Mahabalipuram were first written down by British traveller J Goldingham who was told of the "Seven Pagodas" when he visited in 1798.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4302115.stm)
Many politicians sleep deprived
Politicians are among the most sleep deprived people in society, a survey suggests. Research by the Sleep Council, which compared eight groups, found the average politician gets by on just over five hours sleep a night.
Only hospital doctors on-call averaged less shut eye - just 4.5 hours a night.
Topping the sleep league were solicitors who clocked up close to eight hours on a regular basis. One in five slept for an average of ten hours.
Hours slept a night
Solicitors: 7.8
Architects: 7.5
Mothers of young children: 7.1
Social workers: 6.9
Dustmen: 6.5
Teachers: 6.0
Politicians: 5.2
Hospital doctors (on call): 4.5
Jessica Alexander, of the Sleep Council, said: "Time and again research has shown us that lack of sleep affects our ability to think clearly and rationally.
"So the results of this study are of concern in that they demonstrate that our politicians, the people responsible for making decisions that affect all of our lives, may not be in the best mental or physical shape to do so."
Dr David Lewis, who analysed the findings, said there were wide variations across all the occupations.
For instance, some politicians claimed to enjoy the full eight hours while others reported five hours or less each night.
The survey found found hours spent in bed bore little relation to the number of hours actually asleep.
Dr Lewis said: "On average, the length of time between the sheets was nine hours whereas the average time asleep was just under eight.
"Since around half claimed to fall asleep within 15 minutes of their head hitting the pillow, this suggests that many people - especially politicians - find it much harder to drop off.
"One likely reason is that while mentally exhausted they are not sufficiently tired to fall asleep.
"As a result their heads are filled with circulating thoughts and worries which conspire to keep them wide awake."
Sleep problems
Four out of ten (43%) people who took part in the survey go to bed between 10pm and 10.59pm during the working week.
Sleep facts
Humans need around 8 hours sleep per night
Even a sleep debt of seven hours per week can result in burning eyes, blurred vision and waves of sleepiness
The last dream of the night is usually the most vivid and most easily recalled
A half (47%) wake up between 6am-6.59am during the working week, and seven out of ten (70%) get up within 15 minutes of waking.
Around a quarter (28%) reported problems falling asleep, while a similar number (24%) said they woke early.
Frequent waking was a serious problem for around seven out of 10.
One in five (20%) said they woke up between three and six times each night.
Dr Lewis said: "This may not seem all that serious until we realise that even a momentary wakening can result in up to 10 minutes loss of sleep.
"This means that someone who wakes up six times during the night will have lost around one hour's sleep.
"Quite sufficient to build up a serious sleep debt over a week."
While short term sleep loss is nothing to worry about, in the long term it can damage both mental and physical health.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4307331.stm)
New view on DH Lawrence's legacy
Seventy-five years on from his death, DH Lawrence remains one of the literary world's most contentious and divisive figures. A new biography re-examines the legacy of the famous novelist.
Lawrence was born in Eastwood in Nottinghamshire in 1885
For some, David Herbert Lawrence - author of The Rainbow, Women In Love and Sons and Lovers - is an artistic giant of visionary genius.
To others he is "Dirty Bertie" - a prurient pedlar of obscene smut who compromised his legacy with the infamous Lady Chatterley's Lover.
DH Lawrence's works are the most widely taught English texts throughout the world, but their author's reputation has been severely blighted by charges of racism, sexism and fascism.
A major new biography, however, reappraises the life and work of the Nottinghamshire-born writer.
"Up till now, Lawrence has been perceived as a rough, tough, vitalist figure - an emotional, barely-educated genius whose works poured out of him," says John Worthen, author of DH Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider.
'Introspective'
"But in reality he was a highly intellectual, introspective man and a very careful writer and craftsman."
Worthen, Emeritus Professor of DH Lawrence Studies at the University of Nottingham, argues that the novelist's astonishing productivity was more out of necessity than temperament.
"He wrote so much because his books didn't sell many copies.
"Most of the other great writers of the early part of the 20th century - Virginia Woolf for example - didn't have to earn their living by writing, but he did."
Lady Chatterley's Lover was filmed by the BBC in 1993
Worthen is also keen to stress the importance of Lawrence's wife Frieda, in spite of their volatile and sometimes violent relationship.
Six years older than the then 27-year-old author, Frieda Weekley (nee von Richthofen) was married and had three children when they met.
She and Lawrence eloped and married in 1914, although their stormy union was tested by financial worries and her affair with Italian soldier Angelo Ravagli.
'Revelation'
Nevertheless, Worthen contends she had a "crucial" influence on his writing career.
"Meeting her was the biggest forward movement in his life," he says.
"Frieda was a revelation because she was so different from him - a natural, instinctive, straightforward person. She really changed the way he thought and felt."
Worthen's book contains hitherto unpublished letters from Frieda that offer a fresh take on her creative input.
"She was intensely involved in his writing, and when she wasn't his books got very strange.
"The Boy in the Bush, for example, was written entirely without Frieda's influence - and it shows."
In his biography, Worthen argues that Lawrence channelled his lifelong melancholy into his anger, using it as a spark for his writing.
"His melancholy came out of his peculiar self-containment and loneliness," explains the 62-year-old academic.
'Courageous'
"Lawrence was detached from almost every context you can imagine: background, family, the literary world.
"His self-containment was partly a defence against melancholy, and partly a consequence of it."
Worthen, whose career as a Lawrence biographer began in the 1980s, admits his subject's oeuvre has been overshadowed by the Lady Chatterley controversy.
But, he suggests, writing such a notorious cause celebre was, at heart, a "courageous" act.
"When Lawrence wrote it I don't think he'd seen another sexually explicit book in his life," he explains.
"He was entering a new field as a writer, which is an exciting thing for an established writer to be doing."
The author also hopes his book will rebut accusations that Lawrence flirted with fascism and harboured anti-Semitic views.
"I want to tell the story as it is, get the facts right and clear away some myths," he says.
"But what will rehabilitate Lawrence more than anything is people reading his books."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ts/4294379.stm)
Scientists unearth early skeleton
US and Ethiopian scientists say they have discovered the fossilised remains of one of the earliest human ancestors. The research team, working in the north-east of Ethiopia, believe the remains of the hominid, or primitive human, date back four million years.
They say initial study of the bones indicates the creature was bipedal - it walked around on two legs.
The fossils were found just 60km (40 miles) from the site where the famous hominid Lucy was discovered.
Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), whose remains were unearthed in 1974, lived 3.2 million years ago and is thought to have given rise to the Homo line that ended in modern humans.
Like Lucy?
The as yet unnamed fossil creature, found in February at a new site called Mille in the Afar region of Ethiopia, looks to be even older than Lucy.
The remains include a complete tibia from the lower part of the leg, parts of the thighbone or femur, ribs, vertebrae, a collarbone, pelvis and a complete shoulder blade.
"The discovery of 12 early hominid fossil specimens estimated to be between 3.8 and 4 million years old will be important in terms of understanding the early phases of human evolution before Lucy," Yohannes Haile Selassie told a news conference.
Researchers are often happy to find isolated bones belonging to human ancestors of this age, so to find a partial skeleton is exceptional.
The team that found it says the discovery is also significant because, due to the structure of the ankle bone, the individual almost certainly walked upright like modern people.
The find, one of a series of hominid fossils which are still being unearthed, held many mysteries, said Bruce Latimer, of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, US, who made the discovery with his Ethiopian colleague.
"It is already clear that the individual was larger than Lucy; it has longer legs than Lucy... but it is older which is strange," he said.
Early walkers
It is currently too early to say what sex or species the creature was, say the researchers.
"We have a pelvis which can tell us whether it was male or female. But the whole pelvis is embedded in a rock matrix. That's going to take a lot of time to clean up," Dr Haile Selassie told the BBC News website.
The team had to return home because they were nearing the end of their field season, leaving the excavation unfinished. But there are plans to return to the discovery site in December.
"If you want to look at the sex, stature and what species it is, you have to have all the elements that can be retrieved from the excavation," the Ethiopian researcher added.
Dr Haile Selassie plans to return to the discovery site later this year
The discovery of the remains of at least nine primitive hominids of similar age to the latest find was announced in January.
Those fossils, which were uncovered at As Duma in the north of Ethiopia, were mostly teeth and jaw fragments, but also include parts of hands and feet.
Bipedalism is a crucial aspect of the human form, palaeoanthropologists believe - but there is a great deal of debate about when exactly this ability first arose in our lineage.
There is some evidence that two, very much older hominids could walk upright.
Recent computed tomography (CT) scans of the thighbone of a six-million-year-old Kenyan creature known as Orrorin tugenensis suggest it might have had quite a human gait.
And a seven-million-year-old hominid from Chad, known as Sahelanthropus tchadensis and nicknamed Toumai, may also have been bipedal. The assessment is based on an analysis of where the animal's spine would have entered the skull and the position of muscle attachments on its head.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4322687.stm)
Larks and midnight oil for Asians
More people go to bed later and wake up earlier in Asia than in any other region, a sleep study has found. The poll of 14,100 people in 28 countries and regions found 40% of people in Asia go to sleep after midnight.
Half of the 10 places with the most early-risers were also in Asia, with Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, in premier position.
But Australians sleep the longest - 31% average more than nine hours a night. Taiwan is Asia's most nocturnal country, according to the poll conducted by AC Nielsen, where 69% of people said they go to sleep after midnight.
In Indonesia, on the other hand, 91% of people said they got out of bed by 0700. In Japan, a nation famed for its long working hours, people appeared to get the least sleep - 41% saying they got six hours or less a night.
Letter sparks Aussie murder probe
Police in South Australia have reopened a century-old murder investigation after a written confession was discovered. In the letter, written in 1932 before his own death, local undertaker Gustav Maerschel admits to stabbing a wealthy British man during a heated argument.
The letter was found during renovations to a historic house in Birdwood, 50km (31 miles) from Adelaide.
On Monday, police dug up a bone after searching the house for human remains.
In the letter, Maerschel confesses to stabbing an unnamed Englishman in the 1800s and then burying him under a pear tree in the backyard.
"That incident has always been on my conscience but I have told no one," Maerschel wrote in the letter, read out by Det Sr Con Bob Sharpe.
The confession was found hidden behind a mantelpiece during refurbishment work to the house.
Mr Sharpe said: "The letter says that shortly after the gentleman moved here to Birdwood, he had several arguments with an English gentleman, as he calls him, a gentleman from London.
"During one of these arguments, the man from London has taken out a knife and there has been a bit of struggle.
"The fellow writing the letter has taken possession of the knife and stabbed the victim, one stab wound as we believe."
Mr Sharpe said Maerschel wrote that he had not been a suspect in the murder inquiry at the time.
Police cut down the pear tree and dug 1.2 metres (4ft), and found a bone which will be examined by pathologists to determine if it is human.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asi...ic/4326421.stm)
