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The Independent has an article about a wooden statue found in peat bog which is 'twice as old as Stonehenge'. Named the Shigir Idol, it was found preserved in a peat bog back in 1890. New dating techniques suggest that it is around 11,000 years old, which would make it the oldest extant wooden sculpture.
Depicting a man with mysterious symbols inscribed on him - which scientists believe could be an ancient encrypted code - the statue is 1,500 years older than previously thought.
Scientists in Mannheim, Germany, used the most up-to-date carbon dating technology, called Accelerated Mass Spectrometry, to determine the statue's age.
Thomas Terberger, a professor at the Department of Cultural Heritage of Lower Saxony, part of the team who dated the Idol, told the Siberian Times: "The results exceeded our expectations.
"This is an extremely important date for the international scientific community. It is important for understanding the development of civilisation and the art of Eurasia and humanity as a whole.
"We can say that in those times, 11,000 years ago, the hunters, fishermen and gatherers of the Urals were no less developed than the farmers of the Middle East."
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:21PM (5 children)
Haha that's why I cling to my ancient phone with a slide-out, physical keyboard and turn auto-correct off. Everyone rolls their eyes when they see me fish the thing out of my pocket, with pieces of duck tape holding the battery cover on and gaps in the case where segments of plastic have simply crumbled away.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:43PM
My Gemini PDA came yesterday, and the keyboard is great. It's usable either two-thumbs or proper typing style, and has a very nice hi-res screen. Android is just as annoying to use as I remembered, so you might want to wait until Sailfish 3 is released (Q3 this year according to Jolla), or the community works out the kinks of using linux as a phone OS.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday May 04 2018, @03:30AM (2 children)
It still doesn't stop you from writing "duck tape" instead of "duct tape" though...
(Score: 2) by arslan on Friday May 04 2018, @03:59AM
Umm "Duck Tape" is correct too... https://www.amazon.com/Duck-1303158-Metallic-Chrome-Inches/dp/B002TOL44Q [amazon.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 04 2018, @04:06AM
The original name [octanecreative.com] of the stuff was "duck" tape, because it was waterproof and moisture rolled off it like "water off a duck's back [wikipedia.org]."
"Duct" tape developed later when the color was changed to silver and HVAC guys started using it.
Either one's correct now, but it's slightly more oddball and fun to call it "duck" tape because somebody always says, "Gah, 'duct' tape," as you did just then. :-)
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday May 04 2018, @02:38PM
I think I could type faster using my old T9word dumbphone than with Swype these days. It's practically impossible to get through a whole sentence without it picking the wrong word.
But full QWERTY keyboard using only my thumbs feels silly. Even being a completely adequate touch typist, it feels like I'm hunting and pecking.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"