Well-preserved remains of six Australian WWI soldiers found near Ypres (brisbanetimes.com.au)

"He went over the top - or hopped the bags as the soldiers called it - at dawn on September 20, 1917, the day the Passchendaele battles began for the Australians. We do not know how far Leo Corrigan got before the shell hit. There was not a mark on him, those who carried him from the front said, but he apparently died instantly. For 90 years his body lay in its temporary grave, overlooked perhaps because a road had since been laid over the place where he and five other Anzacs were hastily buried. But now, through DNA matching technology, Leo Corrigan may have been found. His remains may be among six Anzac bodies discovered by gas workers laying a pipe in Westhoek, a few kilometres east of Ypres, in Belgium, last August. The bodies, remarkably preserved in the heavy clay, were wrapped in blankets and tied up with signal wire, their hands clasped before them as though in prayer, at what was a casualty station behind the front. Dirt-smudged rising sun badges clung to the uniforms. A lack of personal effects, such as identification discs, papers or diaries, has hampered identification, although authorities believe one or more of the soldiers came from the 4th division, from either the 12th or 13th brigades. Australian authorities are awaiting Belgian war graves service pathology reports, which may offer clues to the height of the deceased, dental records and the injuries suffered. These could be compared with service records. But it appears that only DNA technology may identify some of the remains. Belgian scientists say DNA should be extractable from the femur of five of the six sets of remains, prompting a rush to find living relatives for DNA matching before the planned reinterment of the soldiers on the 90th anniversary of the Passchendaele battles in early October...."

Mummy from St. Louis Science Center receives CT-scan (studlife.com)

"Washington University researchers have recently made a series of important discoveries based on examinations of the bones and DNA of a mummy recently added to the permanent collection of the St. Louis Science Center. Al Wiman, vice president of Public Understanding of Science at the Science Center, found the mummy in the Center's storage where it had been packed away since 1985. The mummy had been purchased privately in the Middle East at the turn of the 20th century-the same time that banker Charles Parson bought two mummies that he later donated to the University. Wiman contacted the University's Department of Radiology in order to learn more about the mummy without tampering with its contents.... Hildebolt led a team of researches who used X-ray computed tomography (CT) scanning to create three-dimensional images of the mummy. From the scan, the scientists determined that the baby mummy was a boy. They also found corroborating evidence from three places-the mummy's teeth, skull structure and hand bones-which all suggest that the child was between seven to eight months old when he died...." 

Mesopotamian maidens may have been mummified before pit burial (philly.com)

"Dozens of maidens, wearing headdresses of gold and lapis lazuli, walked down into a tomb in Mesopotamia 4,600 years ago. Each raised a cup to her lips, drank some poison, and lay down to die, hoping to join a king or other royal figure in the afterlife. It is an enduring tale from one of archaeology's most famous excavations, pieced together in the late 1920s after the discovery of several such "death pits" full of jewel-encrusted skeletons with clay cups at their sides. Yesterday, Aubrey Baadsgaard set out to prove the story wrong. Like some members of the team that dug up the remains nearly 80 years ago, she works at the University of Pennsylvania. But unlike them, she has access to the tools of modern science. At 7 a.m., the skull from sacrificial maiden number 53 left its home at Penn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Baadsgaard and other Penn scholars drove it across the street to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, where it would receive a CAT scan - the first of several tests to determine who the young woman was, how she died and why.... The graduate student and her adviser, Penn professor Richard Zettler, believe the maiden and her 73 companions in the pit - most of them women - were indeed part of a mass sacrifice. But there has never been direct evidence of poisoning in the pit, and cups have been found in other tombs with no suggestion of sacrifice. Rather, Baadsgaard and Zettler suspect that the women were killed above ground, mummified in some primitive fashion, then carried down into the tomb. It is unclear whether the women were willing participants. "

Traveling exhibit teaches how preserved poop informs scientists (the-scientist.com)

"The din of youthful voices fills the small exhibition hall at The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. A crowd of tiny visitors flits between towering displays, and one rarely-uttered word is on the lips of this excited and potty-mouthed group: Poop. That forbidden yet enticing word rings through the room and draws these youngsters to The Scoop on Poop! exhibit like flies to...well, you know.... The Scoop on Poop! is a traveling exhibit based on the book of the same title by photographer and science writer Wayne Lynch. The largest-ever exhibit about poop explores a substance that's intimately familiar to just about every animal on Earth by presenting some of the countless ways in which both animals and scientists use poop to their advantage. Beyond the exuberant silliness that the topic of poop engenders in young visitors, the exhibit packs some serious science. Chad Peeling, operations manager for Peeling Productions at Reptiland, a zoo in central Pennsylvania and one of the designers of The Scoop, says that the subject is not just for kids.... "

Was Abe Lincoln a mummy? A new book by Thomas J. Craughwell looks at what happened to his body (seattletimes.nwsource.com)

"Seven score and two years ago at 7:22 a.m. April 15, Abraham Lincoln died. After extensive ceremonies and public viewings, from Baltimore through New York to Chicago, he was buried on May 4, 1865, at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Ill. His elaborate marble tomb became a tourist destination where visitors paid respectful tribute to one of America's greatest presidents. And then on Nov. 7, 1876 — election night — a gang of counterfeiters tried to steal Lincoln's embalmed body. Their plan was to hold it for ransom and force the release of Benjamin Boyd, a notorious engraver, but agents of the fledgling Secret Service had infiltrated the gang and thwarted their plans. The attempted body snatching so disturbed the cemetery's custodian that he removed Lincoln's coffin and buried it in the dirt under the tomb. Joined six years later by his wife's coffin, Lincoln's lay in the dirt until April 14, 1887, when the two were finally reburied in a new, concrete-fortified vault. But Lincoln's body would not remain undisturbed, and in 1901 his coffin was moved again. It was also reopened. According to witnesses, one of whom didn't die until 1963, Lincoln was perfectly preserved. Finally, on Sept. 26, 1901, workers sealed Abraham Lincoln's coffin in a steel cage and 10 feet of concrete. No one has moved it since...."

Archaeologists recover three prehistoric mummified bodies found in Mexican caves (people.com.cn)

"Mexican archaeologists found remains of two women and a man that can be traced to more than 10,000 years ago in the Mayan area of Tulum, Mexico's National Anthropology and History Institute said in a statement on Tuesday. The remains were being examined by laboratories in Britain, the United States and Mexico, all of which had said the remains were people between 10,000 and 14,500 years ago, said Carmen Rojas, an archaeologist quoted in the statement.... The remains were found in the Las Palmas, El Templo and Naharon caves, in an area previously thought to be uninhabited. They are not Mayas because they do not have the classic Mayan skull deformation. The woman found in Naharon cave, 368 meters from its entrance and 22.6 meters underground, was 1.41 meters' tall, weighed around 53 kg and was between 20 and 30 when she died. The woman found in Las Palmas cave was between 44 and 50 years old when she died. The body found in El Templo cave was a man aged between 25 and 30. His body was the least well preserved because it had been eroded and most of its organic material was gone...."

Hair of pharaoh Ramses II returned to Cairo's Egyptian Museum for display (torontosun.com)

"Egyptian officials unveiled locks of 3,200-year-old hair yesterday from the pharaoh Ramses II, returned to this country after being stolen 30 years ago in France and put up for sale on the Internet. The small tufts of brown hair were displayed in a glass case at the Egyptian Museum alongside linen bandages and 13 pieces of resin used in the mummification of Ramses and his son Merneptah. The hair will eventually be put on exhibit next to Ramses' mummy at the museum. The theft was discovered when the pieces of hair and cloth from the mummy were put up for sale on a web site last November by a French postal worker, Jean-Michel Diebolt, who gave the hair a price tag of $2,600. 'I was so upset, how the hair of the mummy -- of the greatest king of Egypt -- can be sold on the Internet,' said Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass...."

Mummified bodies found in Omuta home (mainichi-msn.co.jp)

"Five mummified or skeletonized bodies have been found at a missing elderly couple's home here, police said. The bodies are those of adults and they are believed to have been dead for four to 20 years, investigators said, adding that their gender was not known. Local police are poised to conduct autopsies on the bodies in a bid to identify them, suspecting that they may be those of Shigeo Nagae, the owner of the home in Omuta, and his family members who remain missing. Noting that there are no external injuries on their bodies, investigators said it was highly unlikely that they were murdered. One of the children has told investigators that dead people can be revived. The elderly couple is believed to be priests. At about 5:45 p.m. on Tuesday, police officers found the five decomposed bodies lying on futon mats in three separate rooms of Nagae's home, local police said. Some of them have been mummified while others have turned into skeletons...."