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Scholars have been searching for years to find out what caused a worldwide catastrophe in the middle of the 6th century. A cryptic entry in the Winchester manuscript of the Anglo Saxon Chronicle notes that on Feb. 15, 538 AD ?the sun grew dark from early morning until 9 a.m.?

There had been many solar eclipses in the previous half millennium, but this was the first to be recorded among the important events, such as battles and coronations. In the chronicles of Annales Cambriae of Wales, the entry for 537 AD records King Arthur?s death, yet it gives equal weight to a strange plague in Britain and Ireland. Ten years later, this ?yellow? plague was considered responsible for destroying the kingdom of Maelgwyn the Great.
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History textbooks have got it wrong about the Plague, also known as the Black Death, which they say was caused by bubonic plague spread by rats and their fleas. A new study suggests that it was in fact caused by an Ebola-like virus transmitted directly from person to person.
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A team of international researchers claims to have found what could be the first proof of life beyond our planet: clumps of extraterrestrial bacteria in the Earth?s upper atmosphere. Although they are similar to bacteria on Earth, the scientists say the living cells found in samples of air from the edge of the planet?s atmosphere are too far away to have come from Earth.

?There is now unambiguous evidence for the presence of clumps of living cells in air samples from as high up as 25 miles, well above the local tropopause, above which no air from lower down would normally be transported,? says Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, an astronomer at Cardiff University in Wales. ?A prima facie case for a space incidence of bacteria onto the Earth may have been established.? read more

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The mideast is exploding, and there’s one journalist with the courage to tell it like it is. In the Last Days of Israel, controversial journalist Barry Chamish asks a very simple question: is Israel on the road to destruction? His answers are so unexpected and surprising–and so far-reaching–that they suggest a whole new way of looking at the harsh politics of the modern world.

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