The Undiscovered Side of Science & Life

Scientists were working in ho-hum mode at an excavation site where they though they knew, in general, everything they would find.

That state of mind tended to make the project a bit ho-hum at most any particular moment.

But lo and behold, all of a sudden they discovered a massive wall which was of the sort that had not been glanced over by preconceived notions to, thus there were no preconceived notes with which to write scripts of procedure.

Yes, even after all the dogma was searched through, all the canned retorts pondered, they were forced to wonder how the ancients built this human work without modern, industrial grade, heavy equipment:

An archaeological dig in Jerusalem has turned up a 3,700-year-old wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the region, experts say.

The wall is built of enormous boulders, confounding archaeologists as to how ancient peoples built it.

Standing 8 meters (26 feet) high, the wall of huge cut stones is a marvel to archaeologists.

"To build straight walls up 8 meters ... I don't know how to do it today without mechanical equipment," said the excavation's director, Ronny Reich. "I don't think that any engineer today without electrical power [could] do it."

Archaeologist Eli Shukron of the Israel Antiquities Authority added, "You see all the big boulders -- all the boulders are 4 to 5 tons."

(CNN). The wall had been there all the time waiting to be discovered, as empires rose and fell, for thousands of years.

The birthers / president haters were talking about what they would find in a "socialist speech" until they opened up the speech of President Obama only to realize how good the speech was for students.

Especially kid students.

Putting the mouth in gear before the brain has engaged is more likely than not to lead to a fork in the road; one leading to an apology, the other leading to denial.

Likewise, when we think we know it all and our science, formula languages, computer languages, space vehicles, and our plethora of theories can't be beat, that fork in the road is on the way:

A lost world populated by fanged frogs, grunting fish and tiny bear-like creatures has been discovered in a remote volcanic crater on the Pacific island of Papua New Guinea.

A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably rich haul from just five weeks of exploration, the biologists discovered 16 frogs which have never before been recorded by science, at least three new fish, a new bat and a giant rat, which may turn out to be the biggest in the world.

The discoveries are being seen as fresh evidence of the richness of the world's rainforests and the explorers hope their finds will add weight to calls for international action to prevent the demise of similar ecosystems. They said Papua New Guinea's rainforest is currently being destroyed at the rate of 3.5% a year.

(Guardian, UK). Preservation of species is the type of thing where the bad side of the fork in the road could lead to catastrophe, but the other and good fork in the road leads to biomimicry's many helpful discoveries which help humanity.

The next post in this series is here.