Nearly half a century after skeletal remains turned up in the woods outside a North Carolina tire plant, state investigators used advanced DNA testing to put a name to the dead, a 15-year-old girl who ran away from home in Maryland and never came back. North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation announced this week that […] The post Skeletal remains found in North Carolina woods in 1977 identified as 15-year-old Maryland runaway appeared first on American Almanac .
Nearly half a century after skeletal remains turned up in the woods outside a North Carolina tire plant, state investigators used advanced DNA testing to put a name to the dead, a 15-year-old girl who ran away from home in Maryland and never came back. North Carolina's State Bureau of Investigation announced this week that remains discovered on December 29, 1977, belong to Cindy Marcell Blizzard, a teenager from Monkton, Maryland, who left home in the spring of that year. The SBI is treating her death as a homicide. No arrests have been made, and the cause of death remains unknown. The remains, skeletal by the time they were found, lay in woods near a Firestone tire manufacturing plant in Wilson County, a rural area roughly 60 miles east…Open
A scientist surveying a California creek bed for a frog habitat project accidentally discovered a pristinely preserved Pacific Mastodon tooth estimated to be 2.5 million years old, now headed to Stanford University for research. Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist with Balance Hydrologics, was picking through rocks in a San Mateo County creek bed when one caught […] The post Geomorphologist stumbles onto 2.5-million-year-old mastodon molar in California creek bed appeared first on American Almanac .
A scientist surveying a California creek bed for a frog habitat project accidentally discovered a pristinely preserved Pacific Mastodon tooth estimated to be 2.5 million years old, now headed to Stanford University for research. Brigid Lynch, a geomorphologist with Balance Hydrologics, was picking through rocks in a San Mateo County creek bed when one caught her eye. She photographed the oddly shaped stone and moved on. The next day, reviewing the image, she realized she wasn't looking at a rock at all. It was a mastodon molar, an upper left third molar from a beast that roamed Ice Age California. The accidental find, The Sun reported , has now been donated to Stanford University's Doerr School of Sustainability, where researchers plan…Open
A hunter-gatherer who lived in Indonesia as early as 25,000 years ago may have regularly sucked on betel nuts to release their psychoactive properties.
Three law enforcement agencies are now actively investigating the 1993 killing of Shelley Watkins after a forensic DNA advance cracked open a cold case that went dormant when a corruption scandal derailed the original prosecution. Shelley Watkins was 35 years old, a mother of two small girls, one four, one just 18 months, when she […] The post DNA breakthrough revives 33-year-old Texas murder case of mother who vanished on Labor Day weekend appeared first on American Almanac .
Three law enforcement agencies are now actively investigating the 1993 killing of Shelley Watkins after a forensic DNA advance cracked open a cold case that went dormant when a corruption scandal derailed the original prosecution. Shelley Watkins was 35 years old, a mother of two small girls, one four, one just 18 months, when she disappeared from her home in Corsicana, Texas, on the night of September 6, 1993. Seven days later, fishermen pulled her body from the Trinity River. She had been struck at least eight times in the back of the head, bore a ligature mark on her throat, and was wrapped in plastic, bound with duct tape, and weighed down with two concrete cinder blocks. For more than three decades, no one has been held accountable.…Open
A British antique collector paid $85,000 for a taxidermied head mislabeled as a fox, then confirmed through X-ray and CT scans that it belonged to a Tasmanian Tiger, an apex predator extinct since 1936. James Cranfield, a 38-year-old natural history relics dealer who specializes in collecting unusual fox heads, was scrolling an auction site when […] The post Flea market 'fox head' turns out to be one of two known Tasmanian Tiger specimens on Earth appeared first on American Almanac .
A British antique collector paid $85,000 for a taxidermied head mislabeled as a fox, then confirmed through X-ray and CT scans that it belonged to a Tasmanian Tiger, an apex predator extinct since 1936. James Cranfield, a 38-year-old natural history relics dealer who specializes in collecting unusual fox heads, was scrolling an auction site when he spotted a listing for a "19th century fox head" consigned to Auctioneum, an auction house in Bristol, England. The image stopped him cold. The proportions were wrong. The teeth were wrong. Cranfield counted eight upper incisors in the photograph, two more than any fox has ever carried. He believed he was looking at the head of a thylacine, commonly known as the Tasmanian Tiger, a carnivorous…Open
Attorneys for Daniel Conahan Jr., 72, are asking the Supreme Court to stay the execution of their client, who is scheduled to die by lethal injection Thursday.
Two friends from the Netherlands jokingly called each other "sis." Then, a DNA test revealed they are actually sisters! Two friends from the Netherlands jokingly called each other "sis." Then, a DNA test revealed they are actually sisters!
