Federal drug regulators believe that a contaminant detected in a crucial blood thinner that has caused 81 deaths was added deliberately, something the Food and Drug Administration has only hinted at previously.

“F.D.A.’s working hypothesis is that this was intentional contamination, but this is not yet proven,” Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s drug center, told the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations in written testimony given Tuesday.

A third of the material in some batches of the thinner heparin were contaminants, “and it does strain one’s credulity to suggest that might have been done accidentally,” Dr. Woodcock said.

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BIGGAR Archaeology Group have discovered the location of an ancient 5000-6000-year-old settlement site in a ploughed field at Carwood Farm near the town.

After only two days walking ploughed fields to look for evidence of the past, an annual Spring event for the group, the ancient site was located.

Tam Ward, group leader, explained: “Last year we found a few flints at this location, and this time the first thing we noticed on the ground were carbonised hazel nut shells and bits of pottery.

“Straight away, we knew this meant the Early Stone Age when the first people to settle on the land built houses, used pottery and farmed the landscape. Such sites are rare in Britain.”

http://www.hamiltonadvertiser.co.uk/news/local-news/lanark-and-carluke-news/2008/04/24/ancient-settlement-uncovered-at-carwood-farm-51525-20816113/

OSLO (Reuters) - Tests of the bones of two Viking women found in a buried longboat have dispelled 100-year-old suspicions that one was a maid sacrificed to accompany her queen into the afterlife, experts said on Friday.

The bones indicated that a broken collarbone on the younger woman had been healing for several weeks — meaning the break was not part of a ritual execution as suspected since the 22-metre (72 ft) long Oseberg ship was found in 1904.

“We have no reason to think violence was the cause of death,” Per Holck, professor of anatomy at Oslo University, told Reuters after studying the two women who died in 834 aged about 80 and 50.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080425/sc_nm/viking_queen_dc;_ylt=Ao.mlbiU.wWnGxfiBbIrKjQhANEA

A Mysterious mound in Notts that was once thought to mark the boundary of two Anglo-Saxon kingdoms is to be investigated by historians, the Forestry Commission has said.

With their friend John Wood, the couple used an original 19th Century perambulation document to find Thynghowe, which is believed to be an ancient meeting place dating back to Viking times.

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=195917&command=displayContent&sourceNode=134241&contentPK=20476643&folderPk=78486&pNodeId=133951

A total of four antique statues were unearthed in the temple of the Phrygian Goddess Cybele in Bulgaria’s coastal town of Balchik on Wednesday.

The team of the archaeologists Igor Lazarenko, Elina Mircheva and Radostina Encheva discovered two Cybele’s statues and two other, believed to be statues of Aphrodite and Dionysus.

http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=92523

Archaeologists are hoping to unearth evidence of what they believe to have been one of Bronze Age Britain’s largest axe-making “factories”.

Clwyd-Powys Archaeological Trust (CPAT) said the axes, made from a distinctive type rock - known as picrite - had been found throughout the country.

A three-week survey at the 4,000-year-old site will start soon in Hyssington, near Welshpool, Powys.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7371344.stm

The results of DNA and x-ray studies of the two women buried in the Oseberg ship in the year 834 have revealed startling discoveries.

The two women were powerful figures in their day but still lived a hard life, and they were stronger than today’s women. The tests also established a surprising landmark.

“We see here the first known case of cancer in this country,” said Per Holck, Professor of anatomy at the University of Oslo.

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University of Minnesota college student Chris Jenkins was found in the Mississippi River in February of 2003.

Minneapolis Police began investigating the case, which also caught the attention of two retired NYPD detectives.

Turns out, Jenkins’ death was the missing part of the puzzle for Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte.

They think Jenkins connects dozens of other deaths around the country over the last decade. The stories are the same all over the country–an athletic, intelligent, well-liked college student goes missing.

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Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests.

Delaney said a sense of “fear” has been missing for the past few years.

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