My Blog

A team of international experts has been rebuilding our most iconic ancient ancestors from the bones up - starting with a Neanderthal Continue reading the main story A team of scientists has created what it believes is the first really accurate reconstruction of Neanderthal man, from a skeleton that was discovered in France over a century ago. In 1909, excavations at La Ferrassie cave in the Dordogne unearthed the remains of a group of Neanderthals. One of the skeletons in that group was that of an adult male, given the name La Ferrassie 1. These remains have helped scientists create a detailed reconstruction of our closest prehistoric relative for a new BBC series, Prehistoric Autopsy. La Ferrassie 1 is one of the most important discoveries made in the field of Neanderthal research. His skull is the largest and most complete ever found. The discovery of his leg a...

By Robin Banerji BBC World Service, Bakhchisaray   After persecution during Soviet times, Crimean Tatars have returned to their homeland in Ukraine where they are trying to rebuild their lives. Rustem Eminov, now in his mid-40s, was sent into exile when he was just three-months-old. His family was forced to leave the Crimea and was resettled in far-away Central Asia. It was not until the breakup of the Soviet Union, when he was in his 20s, that Eminov was finally able to live in the land of his birth. Over cups of green tea in a room shaded against the fierce sun, he tells me his story.   Like many Crimean Tatars, Eminov grew up in exile   Now a specialist in the history of the Crimean Tatars, Eminov is the director of ethnography at the Historical and Culture Reserve in the old Crimean town of Bakhchisaray. A handsome clean-shaven man, with a smile on his face and an open manner, my wife and I meet him ...

  Malala Yousafzai is one of thousands of Pakistani children whose education has been interrupted The Taliban's attempt to kill teenaged activist Malala Yousafzai in Pakistan earlier this month underlines the dangers that the militant conflict holds for the country's schoolchildren. Tens of thousands of school pupils have been displaced along with their families from areas across Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border where the Taliban have carved sanctuaries for themselves. Thousands were deprived of an education as the militants carried out a persistent campaign against secular education, destroying nearly 1,000 schools since 2006. Years of military operations in these areas have led to further destruction. While militants have been driven out from some areas, the territory they once occupied has not yet been fully secured under a civilian administration. And many significant sanctuaries still remain, especially in North Waziristan, parts of Sout...

Spain's nuclear legacy By Gerry Hadden PRI's The World Continue reading the main story On a sunny morning in 1966 two US Air Force planes collided and dropped four nuclear bombs near the village of Palomares in southern Spain. There was no nuclear blast, but plutonium was scattered over a wide area - and Spain is now asking the US to finish the clean-up. The US government calls nukes that go astray "Broken Arrows" and on 17 January 1966, Palomares got four of them. Overhead, at 31,000ft, an American B-52G bomber collided with a KC-135 tanker plane during routine air-to-air refuelling and broke apart. Three of the bomber's H-bombs landed in or around Palomares, the fourth landed about five miles offshore in the Mediterranean. Manolo Gonzalez says he was standing outside when he heard a tremendous explosion. "I looked up and saw this huge ball of fire, falling through the...

India dream lures migrants' children Rahul is one British Indian who decided to go to India Rising numbers of people of Indian origin born in the West are moving "back" to the country their parents left decades ago. With India's economy growing faster than America or Britain's, the BBC's Rajini Vaidyanathan has been speaking to some of the new wave of "reverse migrants" who are seeking opportunities as well as a cultural connection. I am more Indian than my parents. Officially, anyway. To me this is more than an irony. Mum and dad were born in India, speak the languages, cook the food properly, and know all the customs and cultures. I, on the other hand, was born in Aylesbury in the UK, raised in Milton Keynes, and spent the best part of a decade living in London. I have a very British sense of humour, can just about tie a sari and have still nev...

The US Navy is working on turning seawater into fuel for its planes. But will the idea ever fly? It’s a century-old invention that costs billions to build. So does anyone still need aircraft carriers? The US Navy has a problem.  Its ships often stay at sea for months on end far away from home. To keep its fleet of ships, boats and aircraft running, a fleet of 15 oil tankers roams the globe acting like floating gas stations. According to the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) nearly 600 million gallons (2,300 litres) of fuel were delivered to Navy vessels in 2011. Moving those tanks of oil is an expensive business and that is even before the cost of the oil itself is factored in. Over recent years, the piece of oil has fluctuated wildly, but has generally been on an upward trend. Throw in the fact that many of the large oil-producing nations are generally situated in volatile regions of the world, and you begin to understand why the Navy is interested in cutting...

The Bronx school that produces Nobel winners By Olatz Arrieta BBC Mundo   With such an illustrious alumni, the Bronx High School of Science is tough to get into With its green doors and brown hallways, the Bronx High School of Science looks like many others in New York. But appearances can be deceptive. This high school is a veritable factory of Nobel prize winners in science - no other school in the United States has produced more. Eight alumni of the school have received a Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry since 1972. At the main entrance, next to the display case of trophies, there is a poster with photographs of the winners. The only person missing is the latest recipient, Robert F Lefkowitz, who has just been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, and studied here in the 1950s. Hopeful future Nobel prize winners studying here are, like many students in New York's public schools, the children of immigrants - t...

Changing China seen from the 'hard seats' of a train By Angus Foster BBC News, Beijing Travelling with a cheap rail ticket provides a snapshot of any country's underbelly. Doing it twice at an interval of 26 years, in a country like China, provides a fascinating snapshot of the country's rapid development. Sixteen hours sitting bolt upright on a train gives you a bit of time to reflect on how much a country has changed. It had started to go wrong when I got to the ticket booth in China's capital Beijing and found a queue snaking round the corner. It was the lead-up to the mid-autumn holiday and half the city was headed for distant homes. When I asked for a ticket to Wuhan, an all-night journey south, the young sales girl snorted her derision. Tickets were sold out for the next three days. Continue reading the main story “Half of China's population still lives in the co...

Heriberto Lazcano: The fall of a Mexican drug lord By Will Grant BBC News Heriberto Lazcano, the leader of Los Zetas, one of the Mexico's most feared and brutal drugs gangs, was killed this week in a shoot-out with the Mexican marines. This news was not a major surprise to Mexico-watchers - but then something strange happened. The life of a drug lord is generally pretty short. The world's most notorious was probably "El Patron" - the Colombian cocaine baron, Pablo Escobar, who died aged 44, barefoot, bloated and riddled with bullets on a rooftop in Medellin. Most do not rise that high in the drugs trade, though, nor live that long to tell the tale. We receive constant reports from the Mexican attorney general's office of supposed lieutenants and middle-ranking soldiers from gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas who have been murdered by their enemies or...

Fears and hopes in Turkish town scarred by Syria conflict By James Reynolds BBC News, Akcakale, Turkey-Syria border   Akcakale border crossing between is now shut Continue reading the main story On the road facing the Syrian border, a single Turkish army tank sits behind a mound of earth. Its sights point across 100 metres of scrubland towards the border. The town of Akcakale has felt some of the effects of its neighbour's conflict. It has been hit several times by shells fired from across the border. Muhittin Kaydi can see Syria from his front garden. He used to work as a money changer at the nearby border post.   Muhittin Kaydi says his children are now scared to play outside But that post is now closed, and Mr Kaydi has lost his job. He finds it hard to reassure seven children that their home is safe. "I tell them to calm down," he says, "but every time a door slams,...

Cuban missile crisis: The other, secret one By Joe Matthews Journalist How the second missile crisis unfolded Continue reading the main story Contrary to popular belief, the Cuban missile crisis did not end with the agreement between the US and Soviet Union in October, 1962. Unknown to the US at the time, there were 100 other nuclear weapons also in the hands of Cuba, sparking a frantic - and ingenious - Russian mission to recover them. In November 2011, aware that the 50th anniversary of the most dangerous few weeks in history was less than a year away, my Russian colleague Pasha Shilov and I came across several new accounts that changed our perspective on the Cuban missile crisis and how much we thought we knew about it. Growing up in Berkshire, England, through the nuclear paranoia of the 1980s, ...

Viewpoints: Experts comment on EU's Nobel award The 2012 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to the European Union for its work in promoting peace and stability in Europe. The award recognised the success of Franco-German reconciliation, the EU's eastward enlargement and peace efforts in the Balkans. Here several experts on European affairs give their opinions on the award, which comes at a time of tension amid the eurozone debt crisis. Continue reading the main story “ The EU needs to get back to its core business - trade and promoting reconciliation” Heather Grabbe, Open Society Institute, Brussels This is a big confidence boost for the EU at a moment when confidence is at a very low ebb because of the euro crisis. It's an important reminder that European integration is a peace project. In the Balkans reconciliation is all under the EU's auspices - were it not for the EU they wouldn't be where they are today. The EU is the only b...