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National Geographic
31-07-2025
- National Geographic
Did these real-life events inspire the myth of Atlantis?
An illustration by Sir Gerald Hargreaves shows a utopian scene on a cove of the mythical land of Atlantis. Many scholars think Plato invented the story of Atlantis as a way to present his philosophical theories. Photograph by Mary Evans Picture Library/Everett Collection The lost city of Atlantis likely didn't exist, but Plato's fascinating island nation continues to spark questions. Here's what to know. Atlantis is an island nation mentioned in two of the Greek philosopher Plato's most famous dialogues, Timaeus and Critias. In them, he describes the ancient civilization as peaceful and vastly wealthy, protected by the sea god Poseidon. But although it's one of his most famous stories, it's almost certainly false. So why is this story still repeated more than 2,300 years after the ancient Greek's death? 'It's a story that captures the imagination,' says James Romm, a professor of classics at Bard College in Annandale, New York. 'It's a great myth. It has a lot of elements that people love to fantasize about.' Plato told the story of this ancient kingdom around 360 B.C. The founders, he said, were half god and half human. They created a utopian civilization and became a great naval power. Their home was made up of concentric islands in the Atlantic Ocean, somewhere near what would later be called the Strait of Gibraltar. The islands were separated by wide moats and linked by a canal that penetrated to the center. The lush islands contained gold, silver, and other precious metals and supported an abundance of rare, exotic wildlife. There was a great capital city on the central island, where a palace was built for Poseidon's mortal wife, Cleito. (These fabled 'ghost islands' exist only in atlases) Where is the lost city of Atlantis? There are many theories about where Atlantis was—in the Mediterranean sea, off the coast of Spain, even under what is now Antarctica. 'Pick a spot on the map, and someone has said that Atlantis was there,' says Charles Orser, curator of history at the New York State Museum in Albany. 'Every place you can imagine.' Plato said it existed about 9,000 years before his own time, and that its story had been passed down by poets, priests, and others. But Plato's writings about Atlantis are the only known records of its existence. (These 6 mystery islands existed only in the imaginations of ancient explorers—or did they?) Was Atlantis real? Few, if any, scientists think Atlantis existed. Ocean explorer Robert Ballard, the National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, notes that 'no Nobel laureates' have said that what Plato wrote about Atlantis is true. Still, Ballard says, the story of Atlantis is a 'logical' one since cataclysmic floods and volcanic explosions have happened throughout history, including one event that had some similarities to the story of the destruction of Atlantis. (Here's why the myth of Atlantis endures today) About 3,600 years ago, a massive volcanic eruption devastated the island of Santorini in the Aegean Sea near Greece. At the time, a highly advanced society of Minoans lived on Santorini. The Minoan civilization disappeared suddenly at about the same time as the volcanic eruption. But Ballard doesn't think Santorini was Atlantis because the time of the eruption on that island doesn't coincide with when Plato said Atlantis was destroyed. Petra, Jordan A person standing in the doorway of the Monastery at Petra, Jordan, shows the enormity of the ancient building's entrance. Carved into the sandstone hill by the Nabataeans in the second century A.D., this towering structure, called El-Deir, may have been used as a church or monastery by later societies, but likely began as a temple. Photograph by Martin Gray (The mythological sirens weren't the seductresses we know today) Plato's Atlantis So if Atlantis didn't exist, then why did Plato tell this story? Romm believes Plato created it to convey some of his philosophical theories. 'He was dealing with a number of issues, themes that run throughout his work,' he says. 'His ideas about divine versus human nature, ideal societies, the gradual corruption of human society—these ideas are all found in many of his works. Atlantis was a different vehicle to get at some of his favorite themes.' (Read about the ancient empire that civilization forgot) The legend of Atlantis is a story about a moral, spiritual people who lived in a highly advanced, utopian civilization. But they became greedy, petty, and 'morally bankrupt.' The gods 'became angry because the people had lost their way and turned to immoral pursuits,' Orser says. As punishment, he says, the gods sent 'one terrible night of fire and earthquakes' that caused Atlantis to sink into the depths of the sea. This story originally published on January 21, 2017. It was updated on July 31, 2025.
Yahoo
19-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Word from the Smokies: Park emerges as research hub for understudied organisms
When visitors come to explore Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they have access to a wealth of knowledge highlighting the diversity of plants, animals, and ecosystems found in this special place. Among them are lichens — a lesser-known group of species whose members were largely undiscovered as recently as two decades ago. Since then, the Smokies have grown into a hub of lichen discovery and documentation, with the number of species in the park nearly tripling from 340 to 965. Created by a mutually beneficial relationship between fungus and either algae or cyanobacteria, lichens are complex organisms, with no two being exactly the same. The fungus makes up the primary lichen structure that grows on trees, rocks, or the ground. The secondary organism, either algae or cyanobacteria, provides food for the fungus via photosynthesis, allowing the lichen to grow. With their unique composition, lichens can display a wide variety of forms and colors. Yet few scientists study them. James Lendemer, a leading lichenologist and coauthor of "Field Guide to the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park" who serves as curator of botany at the New York State Museum, pointed out that research often focuses on larger, more noticeable species. 'All these little things are super diverse, and we know comparatively little about them,' he explained. 'The lichens are really unusual because they're visually large enough and conspicuous enough that the average person can see them. They are one of the last frontiers of things we can study that are visible to the naked eye, and yet, they are poorly documented.' Although more research is still needed to fully understand the roles lichens play in the environment, data collected so far shows that they fulfill crucial roles within their respective ecosystems. In fact, they can do a little bit of everything. One of lichens' most important functions is their role in sequestering and cycling nitrogen, a vital nutrient for all manner of living things. Lichens absorb and hold nitrogen while they are alive, and some species fix it into a form other organisms can use. When lichens die, they fall to the ground and rot, releasing nitrogen that is sent back into the atmosphere or absorbed by other living things. Additionally, lichens help regulate temperature and humidity by soaking up any water near them and then slowly releasing it back into the environment. They can also be very sensitive and susceptible to certain conditions such as the presence of air pollution, which makes them early indicators of many environmental issues. Lichens also serve a more individualized purpose, with animals using them for nourishment, nesting material, and even housing. Only within the last two decades has lichen research grown significantly, due largely to the work of a few dedicated lichenologists. One of these researchers, Erin Tripp, associate professor and curator of botany at the University of Colorado Boulder, pointed to one of the main reasons lichens were understudied: 'The answer is, in my opinion, a lack of literature.' For a long time, there were very few resources available for studying lichens. In fact, almost no identification keys or field guides existed. Lichenologists often had no choice but to comb through old scientific papers, looking for clues to identify the specimen before them. Little else could provide them with the information they needed. Today this is often still the case, though some newer pieces of literature are making identification easier in a few specific regions. These include "Field Guide to the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park" by Tripp and Lendemer, as well as "Lichen Flora of the Greater Sonoran Desert Region," which has two volumes, and "Macrolichens of the Pacific Northwest." The work done by lichenologists like Lendemer and Tripp has helped to pave the way for future research, ensuring more information is available and that pathways for this field of study are not as limited as they once were. This new accessibility is essential in helping others learn about lichens and understand the important roles that these species play in the ecosystem. Despite long-standing obstacles to research and documentation, lichens are surprisingly easy to research — often requiring nothing more than a small sample dried and placed in a plastic bag. But why has the Smokies become such a hotspot for studying lichens? The answer lies both in the park's natural diversity of lichen species and the efforts of Discover Life in America, an official partner of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. DLiA is best known for coordinating the Smokies All Taxa Biodiversity Inventory, which aims to document every species in the park through the work of scientists and contributions from park visitors. Since DLiA's inception in 1998, the number of species recorded in the park has more than doubled from 10,363 to 22,744. 'The Smokies region is a temperate rainforest with an abundance of trees and geological diversity,' said Will Kuhn, director of science and research for DLiA. 'We're in lichen heaven! The age of the Great Smoky Mountains is probably also a big contributor, giving evolution plenty of time to work its millennia-spanning magic on lichens here.' The park 'functions as a big refuge for a lot of species,' Lendemer said. Over the years, many forest ecosystems in North America have been disrupted and altered — primarily due to human activity — disturbing the areas where lichens would otherwise thrive. However, Great Smoky Mountains National Park stands out as an area with some of the largest and most intact forests in the eastern United States. Even the heavy logging that took place in the early 1900s wasn't as destructive as the disruption other regions suffered, because the mountains' rugged terrain kept logging companies from reaching certain stands of trees. This history, combined with the high level of protection that this park receives today, allows lichens to flourish, and the park's vast size and elevation gradient offer a wide variety of habitats and environments, making it an ideal place for studying these previously overlooked organisms. In the years to come, these discoveries are only expected to continue. 'We're still in the phase of biodiversity discoveries with lichens that we have been long past with other groups,' said Tripp. 'It has taken us a little bit longer to create momentum, but we're coming around. It's a glorious time to be thinking about these organisms and to learn a lot more about how incredibly diverse they are even on just an individual level.' Help scientists like Tripp and Lendemer learn more about biodiversity in the Smokies by logging your observations using the iNaturalist app. Find out how at Early is a writing intern for the 29,000-member Smokies Life, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the scientific, historical, and interpretive activities of Great Smoky Mountains National Park by providing educational products and services such as this column. Learn more at This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Word from the Smokies: 'Lichen heaven' and understudied organisms Solve the daily Crossword
CBS News
16-07-2025
- Science
- CBS News
More and more mastodon bones found in Orange County, N.Y.
The more they dig in Orange County, the more mastodon remains they find. The Ice Age mammals went extinct 11,000 years ago. The giants may have weighed up to six tons. They've been a longtime source of fascination in Orange County. "George Washington left an encampment in Newburgh and came to Middletown to see a tooth that a farmer had encountered," Dr. Cory Harris of SUNY Orange said. Harris recently led students on a weeks-long excavation in a back yard in Wallkill after the homeowner found mastodon teeth. The painstaking dig recovered more pieces. "We found quite a few vertebrae. We found some ribs," Harris said. The so-called "atlas bones" are perhaps 13,000 years old. "Where we found it, based on the sediments, the sediments indicated that the remains were in a former lake formed by a retreating glacier," geologist Anthony Soricelli said. A nearly complete mastodon skeleton dating to 8,000 B.C. was found in Orange County in 1972. It's named Sugar. Continued exploration for remains of these Ice Age mammals helps answer questions about our natural history and our ever-changing environment. "We're providing opportunities to our students at SUNY Orange. We're recovering real and important natural history for New York, and for Orange County," Harris said. Their finds will be further studied at the New York State Museum in Albany.
New York Post
25-06-2025
- General
- New York Post
Revolutionary War-era boat buried in Manhattan for over 200 years is being painstakingly rebuilt
ALBANY — Workers digging at Manhattan's World Trade Center site 15 years ago made an improbable discovery: sodden timbers from a boat built during the Revolutionary War that had been buried more than two centuries earlier. Now, over 600 pieces from the 50-foot (15-meter) vessel are being painstakingly put back together at the New York State Museum. After years on the water and centuries underground, the boat is becoming a museum exhibit. Advertisement 5 A conservator cleans a piece of wood from a Revolutionary War gunboat using steam. Houston Chronicle via Getty Images Arrayed like giant puzzle pieces on the museum floor, research assistants and volunteers recently spent weeks cleaning the timbers with picks and brushes before reconstruction could even begin. Though researchers believe the ship was a gunboat built in 1775 to defend Philadelphia, they still don't know all the places it traveled to or why it ended up apparently neglected along the Manhattan shore before ending up in a landfill around the 1790s. Advertisement 'The public can come and contemplate the mysteries around this ship,' said Michael Lucas, the museum's curator of historical archaeology. 'Because like anything from the past, we have pieces of information. We don't have the whole story.' From landfill to museum piece The rebuilding caps years of rescue and preservation work that began in July 2010 when a section of the boat was found 22 feet (7 meters) below street level. Curved timbers from the hull were discovered by a crew working on an underground parking facility at the World Trade Center site, near where the Twin Towers stood before the 9/11 attacks. The wood was muddy, but well preserved after centuries in the oxygen-poor earth. A previously constructed slurry wall went right through the boat, though timbers comprising about 30 feet (9 meters) of its rear and middle sections were carefully recovered. Advertisement Part of the bow was recovered the next summer on the other side of the subterranean wall. 5 Curved timbers from the hull were discovered by a crew working on an underground parking facility at the World Trade Center site, near where the Twin Towers stood before the 9/11 attacks. AP The timbers were shipped more than 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) to Texas A&M's Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation. Each of the 600 pieces underwent a three-dimensional scan and spent years in preservative fluids before being placed in a giant freeze-dryer to remove moisture. Then they were wrapped in more than a mile of foam and shipped to the state museum in Albany. Advertisement While the museum is 130 miles (209 kilometers) up the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, it boasts enough space to display the ship. The reconstruction work is being done in an exhibition space, so visitors can watch the weathered wooden skeleton slowly take the form of a partially reconstructed boat. Work is expected to finish around the end of the month, said Peter Fix, an associate research scientist at the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation who is overseeing the rebuilding. 5 The wood was muddy, but well preserved after centuries in the oxygen-poor earth. AP On a recent day, Lucas took time out to talk to passing museum visitors about the vessel and how it was found. Explaining the work taking place behind him, he told one group: 'Who would have thought in a million years, 'someday, this is going to be in a museum?'' A nautical mystery remains Researchers knew they found a boat under the streets of Manhattan. But what kind? Analysis of the timbers showed they came from trees cut down in the Philadelphia area in the early 1770s, pointing to the ship being built in a yard near the city. 5 Archaeologists excavating 18th-century ship at World Trade Center site. AP Advertisement 5 Each of the 600 pieces underwent a three-dimensional scan and spent years in preservative fluids before being placed in a giant freeze-dryer to remove moisture. Houston Chronicle via Getty Images It was probably built hastily. The wood is knotty, and timbers were fastened with iron spikes. That allowed for faster construction, though the metal corrodes over time in seawater. Researchers now hypothesize the boat was built in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775, months after the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Thirteen gunboats were built that summer to protect Philadelphia from potential hostile forces coming up the Delaware River. The gunboats featured cannons pointing from their bows and could carry 30 or more men. 'They were really pushing, pushing, pushing to get these boats out there to stop any British that might start coming up the Delaware,' Fix said. Advertisement Historical records indicate at least one of those 13 gunboats was later taken by the British. And there is some evidence that the boat now being restored was used by the British, including a pewter button with '52' inscribed on it. That likely came from the uniform of soldier with the British Army's 52nd Regiment of Foot, which was active in the war. Every morning, the NY POSTcast offers a deep dive into the headlines with the Post's signature mix of politics, business, pop culture, true crime and everything in between. Subscribe here! It's also possible that the vessel headed south to the Caribbean, where the British redirected thousands of troops during the war. Its timbers show signs of damage from mollusks known as shipworms, which are native to warmer waters. Still, it's unclear how the boat ended up in Manhattan and why it apparently spent years partially in the water along shore. Advertisement By the 1790s, it was out of commission and then covered over as part of a project to expand Manhattan farther out into the Hudson River. By that time, the mast and other parts of the Revolutionary War ship had apparently been stripped. 'It's an important piece of history,' Lucas said. 'It's also a nice artifact that you can really build a lot of stories around.'
The Independent
25-06-2025
- General
- The Independent
Workers digging at the World Trade Center site found a mystery boat. Now they're rebuilding it
A remarkable piece of American history, a Revolutionary War-era boat, is slowly being reassembled at the New York State Museum, 15 years after its improbable discovery beneath Manhattan's World Trade Center site. Workers excavating the site stumbled upon the sodden timbers of the 50-foot vessel, which had lain buried for over two centuries, a relic from the nation's formative years. After years submerged and centuries underground, the boat is now being transformed into a museum exhibit. More than 600 pieces of the vessel are undergoing painstaking reconstruction at the museum. Research assistants and volunteers have spent weeks meticulously cleaning the timbers with picks and brushes, arraying them like giant puzzle pieces on the museum floor before the reassembly process could even begin. Believed to be a gunboat constructed in 1775 to defend Philadelphia, the vessel's full history remains shrouded in mystery. Researchers are still piecing together its travels and the reasons for its apparent abandonment along the Manhattan shore, before it ultimately became part of a landfill around the 1790s. 'The public can come and contemplate the mysteries around this ship,' said Michael Lucas, the museum's curator of historical archaeology. 'Because like anything from the past, we have pieces of information. We don't have the whole story.' From landfill to museum piece The rebuilding caps years of rescue and preservation work that began in July 2010 when a section of the boat was found 22 feet (7 meters) below street level. Curved timbers from the hull were discovered by a crew working on an underground parking facility at the World Trade Center site, near where the Twin Towers stood before the 9/11 attacks. The wood was muddy, but well preserved after centuries in the oxygen-poor earth. A previously constructed slurry wall went right through the boat, though timbers comprising about 30 feet (9 meters) of its rear and middle sections were carefully recovered. Part of the bow was recovered the next summer on the other side of the subterranean wall. The timbers were shipped more than 1,400 miles (2,253 kilometers) to Texas A&M's Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation. Each of the 600 pieces underwent a three-dimensional scan and spent years in preservative fluids before being placed in a giant freeze-dryer to remove moisture. Then they were wrapped in more than a mile of foam and shipped to the state museum in Albany. While the museum is 130 miles (209 kilometers) up the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, it boasts enough space to display the ship. The reconstruction work is being done in an exhibition space, so visitors can watch the weathered wooden skeleton slowly take the form of a partially reconstructed boat. Work is expected to finish around the end of the month, said Peter Fix, an associate research scientist at the Center for Maritime Archaeology and Conservation who is overseeing the rebuilding. On a recent day, Lucas took time out to talk to passing museum visitors about the vessel and how it was found. Explaining the work taking place behind him, he told one group: 'Who would have thought in a million years, 'someday, this is going to be in a museum?'' A nautical mystery remains Researchers knew they found a boat under the streets of Manhattan. But what kind? Analysis of the timbers showed they came from trees cut down in the Philadelphia area in the early 1770s, pointing to the ship being built in a yard near the city. It was probably built hastily. The wood is knotty, and timbers were fastened with iron spikes. That allowed for faster construction, though the metal corrodes over time in seawater. Researchers now hypothesize the boat was built in Philadelphia in the summer of 1775, months after the first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts. Thirteen gunboats were built that summer to protect Philadelphia from potential hostile forces coming up the Delaware River. The gunboats featured cannons pointing from their bows and could carry 30 or more men. 'They were really pushing, pushing, pushing to get these boats out there to stop any British that might start coming up the Delaware," Fix said. Historical records indicate at least one of those 13 gunboats was later taken by the British. And there is some evidence that the boat now being restored was used by the British, including a pewter button with '52' inscribed on it. That likely came from the uniform of soldier with the British Army 's 52nd Regiment of Foot, which was active in the war. It's also possible that the vessel headed south to the Caribbean, where the British redirected thousands of troops during the war. Its timbers show signs of damage from mollusks known as shipworms, which are native to warmer waters. Still, it's unclear how the boat ended up in Manhattan and why it apparently spent years partially in the water along shore. By the 1790s, it was out of commission and then covered over as part of a project to expand Manhattan farther out into the Hudson River. By that time, the mast and other parts of the Revolutionary War ship had apparently been stripped. 'It's an important piece of history,' Lucas said. 'It's also a nice artifact that you can really build a lot of stories around.'
