Bicycle chosen as best invention
The humble bicycle has won a national survey of people's favourite inventions. Listeners to BBC Radio 4's You and Yours programme were invited to vote in an online survey looking at the most significant innovations since 1800.
It was an easy victory for the bicycle which won more than half of the vote.
The transistor came second with 8% of the vote and the electro-magnetic induction ring - the means to harness electricity - came third.
Interplanetary travel
Despite their ubiquity, computers gained just 6% of the vote and the internet trailed behind with only 4% of all votes cast.
People chose the bicycle for its simplicity of design, universal use, and because it is a ecologically sound means of transport.
TOP TEN INVENTIONS
Bicycle - 59%
Transistor - 8%
Electro-magnetic induction ring - 8%
Computer - 6%
Germ theory of infection - 5%
Radio - 5%
Internet - 4%
Internal Combustion Engine - 3%
Nuclear Power - 1%
Communications Satellite - 1%
The survey also asked participants which innovation they would most like to disinvent.
GM foods came top of the polls with 26% of the vote, followed by nuclear power with 19%.
By contrast the technology most would like to see invented was an AIDS vaccine.
Alas, plans to ship long-suffering commuters to distant planets may need to be put on hold with only 15% voting for an interplanetary commuting transport system.
Half voted water treatment and supply systems as the technology to bring most benefit to society.
Another 23% thought that vaccinations deserved the honour.
Each of the technologies were nominated by a different expert, including writer Sir Arthur C Clarke, cloning expert Professor Ian Wilmut and Professor Heinz Wolff.
Prof Wolff's praise of the bicycle held the most sway with voters which will come as a disappointment to Lord Alec Broers, this year's Reith lecturer.
His series of lectures - Triumph of Technology - prompted the vote.
In the first of these he expressed surprise at the results of a similar survey.
It too ranked the bicycle above scientific breakthroughs such as electricity generation, the jet engine, the discovery of DNA and the invention of vaccinations
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4513929.stm
Public relief no longer tolerated
The municipal corporation in the western Indian city of Jaipur has announced a bold initiative to prevent urination on the streets. It is all set to impose fines of 20 rupees (50 US cents), more than an average day's wages for many Indians.
"It will be taken as a charge for clearing up the mess," said Jaipur's Mayor Ashok Parnmi.
The civic body has also amended its rules to increase fines in cases related to the clearing of dirt.
Penalised
"The new steps are taken to keep the pink city of Jaipur clean", said Mr Parnmi.
He said that under the new scheme, city corporation officials would roam the streets and impose on-the-spot fine on anyone found urinating in public.
The offenders are overwhelmingly men who are also inclined to spit in public as well. But so far there are no signs that that they will also be penalised for this habit.
He said the money collected by the anti public urination drive would be used to clean and beautify the city.
But local people are not happy with new rules in a country where the authorities often cast a blind eye on males relieving themselves in public.
Local resident Sharad Bhardwaj said the corporation should first develop a better toilet infrastructure and build more urinals. He complains that the existing ones are over-used and filthy.
"If there are no urinal, where do you expect us to go?" he asked.
Mr Parnmi agreed that public toilets were scarce but he said this should not be used as an excuse to urinate on pavements.
He said the corporation plans to build more public toilets in the coming days.
If there are no urinal, where do you expect us to go?
Jaipur resident Sharad Bhardwaj
He said shopkeepers and restaurant owners would also be targeted with fines of up 500 rupees ($10) if they were caught discarding litter on the streets.
He said a stiff penalty of 1,500 rupees ($30) would also be imposed on those who attempt to deface historical buildings or monuments in the city.
About two years ago, a similar drive against public urination was launched in the Indian capital Delhi.
Sanitation magistrates were appointed to drive around the city in mobile courts to dispense justice on "litter louts".
But the move had only limited success.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4525333.stm
The age of 50 marks authors' peak
Fifty is the perfect age to write a novel, a study of the best-selling authors of the past 50 years has shown. The average age of writers who topped the hardback fiction section of the New York Times Bestseller List from 1955-2004 was 50.5 years.
"We wanted to discover the optimum age to write a best-seller," said Bob Young of Lulu, a website for writers and independent publishers.
"Unlike scientists or musicians, say, writers tend to mature with age."
Romantic novelist Judith Krantz and writer Joe Klein, who published political comedy Primary Colors anonymously, are among the novelists who topped the best-seller list in their 50th year.
Of the 350 authors who saw their novels reach the number one spot over the past 50 years, Francoise Sagan was the youngest with Bonjour Tristesse, published at the age of 19 in 1955.
By comparison, Agatha Christie was the oldest author to top the list, with her novel Sleeping Murder, published shortly after her death at the age of 85.
The authors who most frequently topped the list were horror writer Stephen King who has topped the list 27 times, and Danielle Steel who has amassed 26 number ones.
Nonetheless, authors like JK Rowling and Da Vinci Code writer Dan Brown, who both achieved global fame in their thirties, appear to be bucking the trend.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ts/4540705.stm
Early humans 'followed coast'
The first humans who left Africa to populate the world headed south along the coast of the Indian Ocean, Science magazine reports. Scientists had always thought the exodus from Africa around 70,000 years ago took place along a northern route into Europe and Asia.
But according to a genetic study, early modern humans followed the beach, possibly lured by a seafood diet.
They quickly reached Australia but took much longer to settle in Europe.
Dr Martin Richards of the University of Leeds, who took part in the study, says the first humans may have moved south in search of better fishing grounds when stocks in the Red Sea dwindled due to climate change.
"That might have been the push that set them off," he told the BBC News website.
DNA clues
When the first modern humans evolved in Africa, they lived mainly on meat hunted from animals. But by 70,000 years ago, they had switched to a marine diet, largely shellfish.
The new research suggests they moved along the coasts of the Arabian peninsula into India, Indonesia and Australia about 65,000 years ago. An offshoot later led to the settlement of the Middle East and Asia about 30 to 40,000 years ago.
The data comes from studies by two teams of scientists on the DNA of native people living in Malaysia and on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands between India and Burma.
Scientists can estimate how closely related we are by studying the DNA of the energy producing parts of the cell, our mitochondria.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4543767.stm
Fantastic response to 'Piano Man'
A helpline set up to identify a mystery man who stunned carers by giving a virtuoso classical piano performance has been inundated with calls. The man has not said a word since police picked him up wandering the streets of Sheerness, Kent, in a soaking wet suit and tie on 7 April.
His social worker Michael Camp said the man, in his 20s or 30s, is usually very anxious but "comes alive" at the piano.
Orchestras around Europe are being contacted to see if they know him.
The National Missing Persons Helpline is appealing to anyone who recognises the man to come forward.
Mr Camp said there had been a "fantastic" response.
"We have had one definite lead, but I haven't had time to follow it up yet.
"A name has been given of a possible person from the Sussex area.
"We had one of these before, from the local area, and it sounded promising but... we'll just have to wait and see."
The man's talent came to light after staff at the Medway Maritime Hospital gave him a pen and paper in the hope he would write his name.
Instead the patient, dubbed The Piano Man, drew very detailed pictures of a grand piano.
The man shocked staff with a performance of classical music after Mr Camp showed him the piano in the hospital's chapel.
The mystery man produced a pencil drawing of a grand piano
Mr Camp said: "When we took him to the chapel piano it really was amazing. He has not spoken since the day we picked him up.
"He does not make any sounds but I think I can communicate with him through tiny nods."
The man has since written music, which has been verified as genuine.
Mr Camp added: "It is extraordinary. The first time we took him down to the piano he played for several hours, non-stop."
Several lines of inquiry have been followed, and the hospital brought in interpreters to see if the mystery patient was from Eastern Europe.
He is now being held in a secure mental health unit in north Kent while an assessment is carried out. Mr Camp said he was "extremely distressed" and may have suffered a trauma.
'Very frightened'
Karen Dorey-Rees, adult mental health manager for the West Kent NHS and Social Care Trust, said the mystery man was very vulnerable.
"He is not talking at all, he is very frightened," she said.
"We are aware that he is a very vulnerable man and we would be putting him in a dangerous situation if we let him go."
She said that the labels had been removed from every item of clothing the man was wearing when he was found on The Broadway in Minster, Sheerness.
The case has drawn comparisons with the 1996 film Shine which depicts the story of acclaimed pianist David Helfgott who suffered a nervous breakdown.
Ms Dorey-Rees was unable to say what music he had played.
"Nobody was skilled enough to recognise the music, they just knew it was classical music and he played very well."
Anyone who has information about The Piano Man is urged to call the National Missing Persons Helpline on 0500 700700.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4550069.stm
Kuwaiti women win right to vote
The Kuwaiti parliament has voted to give women full political rights. The amendment to the Kuwait's electoral law means women can for the first time vote and stand in parliamentary and local elections.
It was passed by 35 votes for, 23 against, with one abstention. Council elections are due this year.
The result, announced by the speaker of parliament, was greeted with thunderous applause from the public gallery where backers of the amendment were gathered.
"I congratulate the women of Kuwait for having achieved their political rights," said Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah.
Kuwait's ruler Sheikh Jabir al-Ahmad al-Sabah issued a decree giving women full political rights in 1999.
The change in the law, which was agreed at the end of a 10-hour session, had previously been blocked by a majority of tribal and Islamist members of parliament.
Many of these had argued that Islamic law prohibited women from positions of leadership.
The amendment requires women voters and candidates to abide by Islamic law.
Correspondents say this is an attempt by the ruling family to reassure Islamists. But it could also place restrictions on women campaigners.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/mid...st/4552749.stm
'We're stuck in mum's handcuffs'
Two worried young children phoned police for help when they found handcuffs in their parents' bedroom, put them on - and could not escape. It was one of the top 10 strange calls received by Dyfed-Powys Police during the past six months.
There was also the woman who found a tarantula in a bunch of bananas... which turned out to be a leaf.
The force has set up a new number, 0845 330 2000, for non-emergency calls to ease pressure on 999 operators.
The new number replaces the 43 different police station numbers which were available.
Ch Insp Iain Sewell said: "Our aim is to make it easy for people to contact us. But some calls never cease to amaze our trained telephone operators.
"We wish to be helpful but while requests for directions, bin bags or weather reports may sound amusing, there is a serious implication when it stops our staff dealing with matters of real concern, real emergencies where a life could be in danger.
"I hope people will store the new telephone number and use it for non-emergency calls in the future; calls which report an incident or crime that has already taken place and is no longer urgent; calls about cases or for information that are police matters," he added.
The new number is being introduced after it emerged that just one in five 999 calls to the police was for a genuine emergency.
"People perceive the police as a service to the community - a one-stop shop for advice on all kinds of things," said Ch Insp Sewell.
"Many like the fact that they can speak to real people and not the automated service which many companies provide.
"Although we are here to help and treat all calls the same, it is important that people do not abuse the telephone line and use it only for the correct purposes," he said.
Top 10 strange calls
1. Two young embarrassed children: "Can you send the police up here? Mum and dad went out and we found some handcuffs in their bedroom and put them on and now we're stuck together and don't have a key. Come quick, they'll be home soon."
2. A woman rang up screaming that she had been to her local supermarket and bought bananas. When she got them home, a tarantula crawled out. It turned out to be a leaf from the garden.
3. "My husband's late home from work. Where is he?" (Police said: "A call like this could be important ... but this was just a personal moan").
4. "What's the weather like in Carmarthen? There's snow in Brecon."
5. A school rang up to say there was a pigeon in the building and wanted police to get it out.
6. A man rang to say that he had received an electricity bill but had already paid it. It turned out he had changed supplier so had two bills.
7. "Get the police now, there's a peacock on my lawn."
8. Man: "My next door neighbour is in my garden". Police: "Have you asked him what he's doing?", Man: "No. Get the police straight away." (It turned out he was gardening).
9. "I've lost my snake in the house."
10. A teenager rang to say he missed the bus home from school and wanted a lift from the police as his dad could not pick him up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4071066.stm
India's five-year-old policeman
At a time when most children prepare to go to school, Saurabh Nagvanshi is off to the office. Saurabh works at a police station in Raipur, the capital of India's central state of Chhattisgarh. He is five years old.
He is part of an Indian system that allows a family member to take the post of a government employee who dies while in service.
There is no age limit and many families have no alternative but to send young children to work to make ends meet.
Saurabh has to feed a family of five and so his mother, Ishwari Devi Nagvanshi, holds his hand and takes him the 110km (68 miles) from Bilaspur, where they live, to Raipur.
Signing for the cheque
In this surrogate police job, a child must work one day and go to school the next. At work, the children are asked to do filing and bring tea and water for senior officials. The children are paid 2,500 rupees ($57) a month.
At an age when children are learning how to write, Saurabh now knows how to sign his name when he receives his monthly salary.
He is quiet. If you try to talk to him he will either run away or hide behind his mother.
Mrs Nagvanshi says: "In order to run the house I had no option but to make my child work. It's not nice. He should be jumping around and playing at his age."
Respect
For most of the children who take on the responsibilities of their dead fathers, there is no time to play.
Manish Khoonte, who is 10, works as a child officer in the Korba police station.
His begins at 0600 by going to school with his two younger brothers. In the afternoon, after finishing his studies, he goes to work. He gets extra tuition in the evening.
He loves football, but has no time to play.
But he does get 2,400 rupees a month and the respect of his peers - they call him "policeman".
Manish says he wants to become an inspector someday.
Jitesh Singh, 13, wants to leave his job as a child officer as soon as possible but thinks it could be many years before that happens.
Janki Prasad Rajwade, 18, feels the same way. She joined the police in 1994 after her father's death.
Since then, she has spent every day wondering when she will be able to leave.
She says she does not like filing and serving tea but has little choice.
She hopes to finish her studies and get a job with the federal Indian Police Service, not the state force.
'Illegal'
Railway Police superintendent in Raipur, Pawan Dev, says the employment of the children in the police must be seen from a social perspective.
The money is a great relief to the families, he says. In addition, the workload is light.
But Subhash Mishra, a member of the state's Human Rights Commission, says it is wrong to make children work like this.
He says, instead, the families should be given an equal amount of money to pay for the child's upbringing and education.
Subhash Mahapatra, president of a human rights organisation called Forum for Fact-finding, Documentation and Advocacy, goes further.
According to the Geneva Convention, he says, employing children as police officials and making them work at such a young age is against Indian and international laws.
"It is very similar to the definition of child soldiers as outlined by the United Nations," he says.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4073204.stm
Huge table gives food for thought
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...r203300_pa.jpg The sculpture is a tribute to the loneliness of writing
A table and chair the size of a house have been captivating visitors to north London's Hampstead Heath.
The 30ft (9m) sculpture, The Writer, will be on Parliament Hill for four months before returning to Italy.
The tribute to the loneliness of writing is meant to inspire visitors to the heath, which has associations with writers Keats and Coleridge.
Leslie Mare, from the Corporation of London which runs the heath, said: "People seem to love it or hate it".
Giancarlo Neri, who used to play soccer for New York Apollos in the seventies, chose the heath, one of London's most popular parks, after hearing of its artistic heritage.
The Naples-born artist used six tons of steel and 1,000lb of wood to create the giant sculpture.
He said he wants people to interact with it, using it as a picnic spot or using the legs as goal posts.
When it was on display in Rome two homeless people were said to have lived underneath it.
Ms Mare told BBC News: "People talk about it, look at it, some people have even graffiti'd on it but it's really engaged people.
"It's almost a reminder of the heath's hidden heroes, and hopefully will encourage new young budding artists and writers."
The sculpture will be officially unveiled at a party on the heath on Wednesday, during the first week of Art Fortnight London.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4117974.stm
Girl probes 'PlayStation thumb'
A 13-year-old girl has become the youngest author to be published in South Africa's main medical journal for her research on "PlayStation thumb". Safura Abdool Karim interviewed 120 of her former schoolmates for a science project about whether they suffered problems after playing computer games.
Symptoms of "PlayStation Thumb" include blisters numbness and tingling, mainly in the thumb, she wrote.
She said the condition is similar to Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI).
"Although RSI is not new, in the past it occurred mainly among adults," she said.
"Today computers and computer games are creating new medical problems, such as PlayStation thumb, which are becoming common in children."
'Waste of time'
South African Medical Journal's deputy editor, Professor JP van Niekerk, said Ms Karim's work would be listed on the Index Medicus, an international registry of medico-scientific articles, "so the world can see this and cite it".
"I think it's a jolly good article. It was accepted on merit, but we also thought it was great fun," he said.
Her study found that 28 of the 60 boys and 17 of the 60 girls she spoke to played regularly.
Of these, eight boys and seven girls complained of symptoms such as redness, tingling and blisters.
Ms Karim said she had not seen the journal yet, "but I was really happy to hear it had been accepted".
She said she herself did not own a PlayStation because they were a "waste of time".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4122828.stm
10 interpretations of a big table
Following from http://www.online-literature.com/for...postcount=267:
A huge table and chair have been erected on Hampstead Heath in London. It's an artwork called The Writer, by Italian Giancarlo Neri. But what does it mean? Here are 10 interpretations - add your own at the bottom.
1. It's about writers' block. Simon Gillespie, of the ROLLO gallery which arranged the installation, states: "For me, The Writer works on many different levels but succinctly, it summarises the pressure one can feel in front of a blank page."
2. It's about absurd self-deprecation. Poet Olivia Cole says: "[T]he desk looming ridiculously large, there's as much hopelessness as hopefulness and as much absurd self-deprecation as lyricism. Writers seem less appealing than the broken story of life interrupted."
3. It's just for effect. The London News Review says: "The chair is pushed into the table. The writer is not at his desk. The act of writing is not being done at this table and chair. Where is the writer? Presumably out with friends, or in bed with two prostitutes. Either way, neither loneliness nor writing is celebrated in this work. If anything, The Writer celebrates shirking. However, it is obvious that the primary response one has to The Writer has nothing to do with writing or not writing, it is simply 'cor, that's big'."
4. It's about creation. Francesca Gavin wrote in BBC Collective that it "is sharp, funny and fits perfectly with its surroundings", and that it plays with the ides of "the epic process of inspiration and something fundamental about creation". "This epicness is highlighted by the location. At the base of a large hill, resting in an alcove of trees, the sculpture doesn't impose itself on the Heath but slots into it. The grass and trees are transformed into an invisible giant's garden."
5. It glamorises being a writer, and will make writers feel how lucky they are. Author Deborah Moggach wrote in the Guardian: "Stewing away alone, writers are prone enough to both self-pity and delusions of importance. This will only encourage them. What about a monument to the ghastlier life of a call-centre operative? Not only would it give them some much-needed recognition, but would make writers realise how lucky they are not to have to do it."
6. It's just original. Hampstead Heath local Mel Barrett, 33, says: "'It is so original it is great. So many writers have lived in Hampstead that it is fitting that it is here. I think it works well that it is so large and surprising.'
7. It's about the unknown... perhaps sex? Poet Michael Rosen says: "[People] are going to wonder about what's on top? There's a lovely not-being-able-to-see-the-top about it, and of course, people will think about all sorts of activities and what might be going on there. After all we have a mile-high club, well, we might get a 30-foot high club."
8. It's a glimpse into a private world. Columnist Natasha Walter says it "manages to look as if something has been pulled out of a private place and into the public arena. The table and chair are domestic, vernacular objects recast into public art by a playful imagination."
9. It's about size. But, according to Carl, a commenter on the Punclox weblog: "It's not big. We are just small."
10. It's about loneliness. Giancarlo Neri, the artist himself, says: "I will say that The Writer was prompted by the idea of the writer's condition: that in order to write about people and life, they actually have to set themselves apart. Of course, much thought went into the look, the colour, the style, but the idea is that it should suggest nothing in particular. It's as ordinary as possible. I think of it as a stage set waiting for actors who never come. In that sense, it's interactive."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4123406.stm
Indians 'world's biggest readers'
Indians are the world's biggest bookworms, reading on average 10.7 hours a week, twice as long as Americans, according to a new survey. The NOP World Culture Score index surveyed 30,000 people in 30 countries from December 2004 to February 2005.
Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India's high figures. Time spent on reading meant fewer hours watching TV and listening to the radio - India came fourth last in both.
The NOP survey of 30,000 consumers aged over 13 saw China and the Philippines take second and third place respectively in average hours a week spent reading books, newspapers and magazines.
Britons and Americans scored about half the Indians' hours and Japanese and Koreans were even lower - at 4.1 and 3.1 hours respectively.
Social change
R Sriram, chief executive officer of Crosswords Bookstores, a chain of 26 book shops around India, says Indians are extremely entrepreneurial and reading "is a fundamental part of their being".
TOP READERS
1. India 10.7 hours a week
2. China 8
3. Philippines 7.6
7. Russia 7.1
16. Australia 6.3
23. US 5.7
26. UK 5.3
29. Japan 4.1
30. S Korea 3.1
Global average 6.5
Source: NOP World Culture Score
"They place a great deal of emphasis on reading. That's the reason why they do well in education and universities abroad," he told the BBC News website.
"People educate themselves and deal with change throughout their lives. And the way to do that is to update themselves with books."
Mr Sriram says social changes have also made a difference: "Earlier people could turn to their parents and grandparents for advice. Now they turn to books."
Indian writer and editor, Tarun Tejpal, said the survey only made sense if it excluded the high numbers of illiterate Indians.
The National Readership Survey shows more than one-third of rural Indians and about 15% of the urban population is still illiterate.
"A lot of [book reading] is aspirational, getting ahead in the rat race, getting admission into schools and colleges etc. It has less to do with reading, more to do with rote," Mr Tejpal said.
Leading columnist, Venkateshwar Rao, told Britain's Sunday Times newspaper he could not see Indians flocking to book stores.
"Reading books just isn't a habit with them because they're not into cultural pursuits. It's not a part of their make-up. All they want to do is consume."
Mr Tejpal said: "A good book in India will sell only a few thousand copies, in the UK or US it could sell tens of thousands.
"It gives you a sense of what we value - in the UK or US if you haven't read a book in the bestseller list, you would be socially dead."
India's strong reading score may have helped push it down the TV and radio list.
Indians came fourth from bottom of the 30-strong list in both, with an average of 13.3 hours watching TV and 4.1 hours listening to the radio.
Thais were the biggest TV watchers, admitting to watching an average of 22.4 hours a week, while Argentineans listened to most radio.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4626857.stm
Texan pupils pass exam for arson
Two Texas students have been charged with arson after agreeing to torch a teacher's car so she could collect insurance money. Roger Luna, 18, and Darwin Arias, 17, were failing their chemistry class but got passing marks in exchange for stealing and burning the car.
Houston teacher Tramesha Fox hatched the scheme in May after falling behind in payments on her Malibu Chevrolet.
Ms Fox, 32, has been charged with arson and insurance fraud.
Suspicious
Ms Fox, of Aldine Senior High School, reported her 2003 Chevrolet stolen on 27 May. It was found burned out 12 days later near the home of Mr Arias.
On the last day of school, the boys allegedly took the unlocked vehicle from a shopping mall car park to a wooded area and set it alight.
Mr Luna and Mr Arias had been failing Mr Fox's class until their final exam but both received high enough marks to pass the year.
Investigators became suspicious when they discovered Ms Fox had bought a new Toyota Corolla a week before the Chevrolet was reported stolen.
She reportedly still owed $20,000 on the Chevrolet.
Fire investigator Dustin Deutsch, of the Harris County Fire Marshal's Office, said Ms Fox initially blamed the damage on students.
He said she provided a list of up to seven potential suspects which did not include the names of her alleged co-conspirators.
Mr Luna and Mr Arias were identified after investigators checked Ms Fox's mobile phone call list.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4641075.stm
New Leonardo picture discovered
A new picture by Leonardo da Vinci has been discovered, the National Gallery in London has said. It said experts using infra-red techniques found a drawing under the surface of the Virgin of the Rocks painting which hangs at the gallery.
It believes the drawing shows a woman kneeling with one arm stretched out.
Experts believe the Italian Renaissance painter was planning a picture of an adoration of the child Christ but abandoned the idea.
Leonardo was commissioned to paint the Virgin of the Rocks to decorate an altarpiece in a chapel in Milan in 1483. The artist appears to have painted two versions. One, which now hangs in the Louvre, was probably sold to a private client, says BBC arts correspondent Rebecca Jones. The other, which hangs in the National Gallery, was placed in the chapel in 1508.
It is under this painting that experts believe they have found a drawing of a kneeling woman.
She is pictured with her eyes downcast and one of her hands stretched out.
Experts think Leonardo da Vinci was probably planning a picture of an adoration of the Christ child, but abandoned the idea before drawing Jesus as a baby, our correspondent says.
However, why he painted over the work may never be known, she adds.
Milan arrival
The Virgin of the Rocks was the first painting executed by Leonardo after his arrival in Milan.
Critics have argued over exactly what the painting depicts.
Some claim it shows the Immaculate Conception, while others believe it recalls the moment when the infant Christ met St John the Baptist.
Leonardo painted the Mona Lisa, considered to be among the world's most famous paintings.
His other masterpieces include the Last Supper and Adoration of the Magi.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl...2265/img/1.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4639945.stm
Footprints of 'first Americans'
Human settlers made it to the Americas 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence. A team of scientists came to this controversial conclusion by dating human footprints preserved by volcanic ash in an abandoned quarry in Mexico. They say the first Americans may have arrived by sea, rather than by foot.
The currently accepted theory is that the continent's early settlers arrived around 11,000 years ago, by crossing a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska.
Ancient lake
Dr Silvia Gonzalez of Liverpool's John Moores University and her colleagues found the footprints in the quarry, some 130km (80 miles) south-east of Mexico City, in 2003. But they have only finished dating them this year.
The footprints were preserved as trace fossils in volcanic ash along what was the shoreline of an ancient volcanic lake. They were soon covered in more ash and lake sediments and, when water levels rose, became as solid as concrete.
Dr Gonzalez was under no illusions that the finding would be controversial: "It's going to be an archaeological bomb," she told the BBC News website, "and we're up for a fight."
The team used several methods to date a variety of material from the site near Puebla, Mexico, in order to be sure they were right about the age.
"We have materials that have been dated below the footprint layer, the footprint layer itself and on top of the footprint layer. Everything is making sense," said Dr Gonzalez.
The researchers used radiocarbon dating on shells and animal bones in the sequences and dated mammoth teeth by a technique called electron spin resonance. The sediments themselves were dated by optically stimulated luminescence.
"Some lake sediments were incorporated into the ash and were baked. They look like small fragments of brick and these were the ones we dated in the footprint layer. They gave us a result of 38,000 years," Dr Gonzalez.
Land crossing
Under the traditional view, humans trekked from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge that linked these land masses at the end of the last ice age (between about 10,000 and 12,500 years ago).
Central to the theory, called the Clovis First model, are Clovis points - the tools these settlers used to hunt large beasts, or megafauna, such as mammoths and mastodons.
"The existence of 40,000-year-old human footprints in Mexico means that the Clovis First model of human occupation can no longer be accepted as the first evidence of human presence in the Americas," said co-investigator David Huddart, of Liverpool John Moores.
Dr Michael Faught, an expert in early American archaeology, was reserving judgment until evidence was published: "It would be significant if it were demonstrated, but usually those (early) sites don't hold up well," he told the BBC News website.
But, he added: "There's more and more evidence that Alaska was not the only place people came into the continent."
Dr Gonzalez is a proponent of the Coastal Migration Theory. This proposes that people arrived on the west coast in boats, hugging the coastline from North to South.
But where these settlers came from is still a mystery, she says. Some have proposed that the earliest humans to reach the continent could have come from south-east Asia or even Australia.
Genetic studies of present-day Native American populations support a recent arrival from north-east Asia, which agrees well with an entry through the Beringian land bridge at the end of the last Ice Age.
Dr Gonzalez suggests that the earliest settlers may have become extinct, leaving no genetic legacy today. She thinks these hunters may have been highly mobile, living in small groups, perhaps explaining why they left scant trace of their presence.
Dr Gonzalez and ancient DNA expert Alan Cooper, of the University of Adelaide in Australia, have managed to extract genetic material from three molars belonging to Peñon Woman III, a 13,000-year-old partial skeleton from Mexico. The analysis is still underway.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4650307.stm
Turkish sheep die in 'mass jump'
(Sheep are gonna be sheep, I guess!)
Turkish shepherds watched in horror as hundreds of their sheep followed each other over a cliff, say Turkish newspaper reports. First one sheep went over the cliff edge, only to be followed by the whole flock, according to the reports.
More than 400 sheep died in the 15-metre fall - their bodies cushioning the fall of 1,100 others who followed.
The sheep belonged to villagers in the eastern Van province. Papers say the sheep were worth around £42,000 in all.
"Every family had an average of 20 sheep," one villager told the Aksam daily newspaper.
"But now only a few families have sheep left. It's going to be hard for us."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4665511.stm
