“This finding is significant,” said Chapurukha Kusimba, co-leader of the expedition and curator of African anthropology at The Field Museum. “We know Africa has always been connected to the rest of the world, but this coin opens a discussion about the relationship between China and Indian Ocean nations.”

The coin itself is made of copper and silver, and has a square hole in the middle. Researchers say the coin is called a “Yongle Tongbao,” and was issued by Ming Dynasty Emperor Yongle. Emperor Yongle, who reigned from 1403 to 1425 CE, was known to have sent a man named Admiral Zheng He on a mission to explore the Indian Ocean.

“Zheng He was, in many ways, the Christopher Columbus of China,” said Kusimba. “It’s wonderful to have a coin that may ultimately prove he came to Kenya.”

Researchers say that the island of Manda held an “advanced civilization” from 200 CE to 1430 CE. After that, the island was abandoned and never again inhabited. Chinese expeditions dried up in the wake of Emperor Yongle’s death.

“We hope this and future expeditions to Manda will play a crucial role in showing how market-based exchange and urban-centered political economies arise and how they can be studied through biological, linguistic, and historical methodologies,” said Kusimba.

(Image courtesy John Weinstein/The Field Museum)

Now, the company is talking about the work it has been doing with the German-Franco Institute, German-Franco University and The Office for French-German Youth to put together another round of online exhibitions related to five decades of “Franco-German friendship”.

The exhibitions include videos, photos, documents and expert commentary.

“France and Germany today celebrate 50 years since the signing of the Elysee Treaty in Paris by French President Charles de Gaulle and German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer,” says Philipp Bieberstein of the Google Cultural Institute. “The treaty marked a dramatic move away from hostility towards an era of unprecedented cooperation. The two nations soon came together as founding members of the European Union and to forge a partnership that would usher in an era of peace and prosperity in Europe.”

“A particular highlight is a digital copy of the original Elysee Treaty supplied by the German Foreign Office,” he says. “Visitors may zoom in to read the details of the agreement. Videos from the Memory of the Nation project explain what the postwar political relationship has meant to ordinary citizens. Testimony from people present in the crowd during De Gaulle’s speech to the German Youth calling Germany a ‘great nation’ and photos from the 300,000 exchanges between French and German youths help to capture the spirit of the new partnership. Around 170 multimedia items chart the history of how the Treaty led to the formation of the European Union and the evolution of the French-German relationship to the present day.”

In addition to their online presence, the exhibitions are being displayed at the German Foreign Office in Berlin. They will be open to the public until mid-March.

Go to the Google Cultural Institute and browse the projects.

This supplements earlier efforts by Google and the Israel Museum to make the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible online.

“The Israel Antiquities Authority is launching the Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, an online collection of some 5,000 images of scroll fragments, at a quality never seen before,” explains Google in a blog post. “The texts include one of the earliest known copies of the Book of Deuteronomy, which includes the Ten Commandments; part of Chapter 1 of the Book of Genesis, which describes the creation of the world; and hundreds more 2,000-year-old texts, shedding light on the time when Jesus lived and preached, and on the history of Judaism.”

“Millions of users and scholars can discover and decipher details invisible to the naked eye, at 1215 dpi resolution,” says Google. “The site displays infrared and color images that are equal in quality to the Scrolls themselves. There’s a database containing information for about 900 of the manuscripts, as well as interactive content pages.”

In October, Google helped to bring more history online by lending its services to 42 historical exhibitions related to Apartheid, D-Day, the Holocaust, and more, by way of the Google Cultural Institute.

It should be noted that some Nintendo hardware is absent from the above video. The most obvious omission is the Virtual Boy, but that can be forgiven. I believe even Nintendo itself would like to forget the Virtual Boy.

The video also misses out on a few variations of Nintendo’s much loved Game Boy line. The first omission is the Game Boy Pocket, but that redesign isn’t exactly important. The far more egregious omission is the Game Boy Advance SP. The SP introduced a much needed back lit screen, and a far more ergonomic design that’s still seen in the company’s recent DS line of handhelds.

Beyond the omissions, the video is excellent. Our hats are off to Anthony Veloso and Quentin Dron for creating a masterful walk through the storied history of one of gaming’s most prolific companies.

[h/t: Kotaku]

Here’s more about the effort:

“As with the other archives that we’ve helped bring onto the Internet, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, you can zoom in to see photos in great detail and search through millions of items for a specific country, person, event or date,” explains Google Cultural Institute product manager Mark Yoshitake.

Here’s more on the Dead Sea Scrolls project.

Here’s a video Google put together to help you use the site:

“The historical collections are the latest chapter in the work of the Google Cultural Institute, following the Art Project, World Wonders and the Nelson Mandela archives,” adds Yoshitake. “We’re working closely with museums, foundations and other archives around the world to make more cultural and historical material accessible online and by doing so preserve it for future generations.”

Google will be expanding its Cultural Institute further, and is calling on other potential partners to apply here.

NASA says that the video will also be accompanied by blogging from NASA administrator Charlie Bolden.

NASA is also hosting a Google+ Hangout after the speech ends (3 pm ET) called “50 Years Later: NASA Discusses Using Innovation and Ingenuity to do Big Things.” During the Hangout, you can expect to hear from NASA Administrators, former astronauts, and a current ISS commander.

JFK’s speech at Rice University on September 12th, 1962 is one of the most famous speeches in American history. In it, he advocated for progress, exploration, and shifting America’s space program into “high gear.” Here’s one of the most well-known quotes from the address:

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too,” said President Kennedy.

And in less than a decade, Americans set foot on the surface of the moon.

You can watch the high quality version here at 11:15 ET, or you can cheat and watch a lower quality version below:

UNC Charlotte alum and decade-long studier of satellite imagery Angela Micol first discovered the two distinct sites, which are located about 90 miles apart.

The first site features a four-sided “truncated pyramidal shape” that Micol says is about 140 feet wide. If you zoom out on it, you see that it’s actually part of a larger series of unidentified mounds that are all rather similar in structure. Micol says that they are similar to the alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids.

The second site (seen at the lead) has a much bigger, triangular-shaped mound of about 600 feet. Surrounding that are more plateaus of 250 feet and 100 feet widths, respectively.

“The images speak for themselves. It’s very obvious what the sites may contain but field research is needed to verify they are, in fact, pyramids and evidence should be gathered to determine their origins. It is my hunch there is much more to these sites and with the use of Infrared imagery, we can see the extent of the proposed complexes in greater detail,” says Micol.

The structures, which come from Northern Egypt, have been verified as officially undiscovered by Egyptologist Nabil Selim. Selim has discovered pyramids of his own, Sinki at Abydos for example.

“My dream is to work with archaeologists to release sites that I have identified over the past ten years of research. This research is the frontier of discovery and it’s just beginning to advance views of our ancient past,” says Micol.

[Google Earth Anomalies via Discovery News]

The Internet turns 21-years-old today. Our favorite form of communication has just graduated college and is now ready to finally make a name for itself out there. If you know anything about history, you know that the Internet itself is way older than that. Developing the system to allow computers to communicate over great distances has been around since the late 60s. It wasn’t until 1991 though that the Internet started on its path toward mass proliferation and consumption.

The Internet that we all know and love today was created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who now works for the Open Data Institute in the UK government. He is considered the father of the Internet and for good reason. He created the first publicly available Web page that detailed what he called the “World Wide Web.” What was originally intended to facilitate communication between researchers turned out to be something much more.

What’s really interesting is how we can look at the development of the Internet like the development of our own culture and civilization. The Internet started out small and then began to grow as Web pages moved out and expanded beyond it early boundaries. Empires like GeoCities, NetScape and those limitless AOL free trial CDs all died and gave birth to the new age of the Internet which includes the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These services will surely continue to evolve and might even give way to more popular and powerful services in the future.

The Internet, in its relatively short time on this Earth, has already done more to advance the spread of knowledge and spark imagination than any other technology on the planet. The Internet allows us to visit places that we never thought possible in our lifetimes. It allows us to learn from the greatest minds on the planet without having to lift a finger. It even allows us to keep those in power in check through more means than ever before.

It’s exciting to think about what the future holds for the Internet. Unfortunately, that excitement is limited by a lot of fear. The Internet has become a powerful tool that threatens a lot of powerful people who wish to see it regulated or stopped outright. The Internet is something worth protecting. You may have heard the expression, “Only the good die young.” The Internet isn’t just good, it’s our most precious asset. It deserves to live as long as we can allow it.

[h/t: Wired]

During my younger days, I fancied myself as a kind of low-rent urban explorer. At one point in time, I managed to find my way into an abandoned commune in Eastern Kentucky that had been completely washed out by a cloud burst in the early 1900′s, an event which claimed the lives of several individuals who called the area home. Discovering that a railroad is running beneath your hometown has to be a thrilling for those who love this stuff sort of stuff, despite the fact the opening has caused a bit of a problem for the Colorado Department of Transportation.

Speak of the DOT, here’s what they had to say about the sinkhole:

After thorough examinations of the sinkhole yesterday involving a variety of engineers, maintenance supervisors, and geological experts, it was determined that the sinkhole is actually a century-old railroad tunnel that collapsed decades ago. The depth of the hole is currently estimated to be about 100 feet, and since the depths reach so far into the earth, much of the soil was still frozen until very recently. When the soil thawed, the hole was exposed.

By the way — if you’re heading up to Camp Hale to check out where soldiers once trained for winter and mountain warfare during World War II, you’re going to have to make a bit of a detour. And when I say a bit, I mean a 60-mile detour. Make sure you plan your upcoming trip according, as it’s currently unclear when the highway will be reopened.

“They were pretty famous in their moment and I think that’s lasted through time,” said RR Auction vice president Bobby Livingston.

The aforementioned weapons were recovered from the still-warm bodies of the doomed couple following the 1934 ambush by police which ultimately claimed their lives. Bonnie’s revolver was retrieved from her inner thigh, which was held in place with medical tape. Clyde’s handgun, meanwhile, was pulled from his waistband. The fact that these items were recovered from their corpses is sure to hold quite a bit of appeal for history buffs.

In addition to the weaponry, prospective bidders can also toss some money at a letter Clyde wrote to his brother L.C. Barrow on the back of a photograph. The gangster’s gold pocket watch, Bonnie’s cosmetics case, and a brown leatherette box will also be on the auction block should someone decide to add these items to their collection.

All of these amazing pieces are coming from the private collection of Robert E. David, a collector who acquired an assortment of Bonnie and Clyde-related relics from Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, one of the men who participated in the bloody ambush. Additionally, some of the items were obtained from Clyde’s sister, Marie Barrow.

In case you were wondering, the two young hooligans are thought to have committed 13 murders and scores of robberies during the 1930′s. As word of their crime spree began to spread, so did their popularity, which ultimately made staying out of the public eye a little difficult for the duo. Even after 80 years, the legend of the lovestruck outlaws still manages to capture the imagination of those who are fascinated with the lives of gangsters.