An odd mixture for a single post but Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a clay bulla or seal with the name of Bethlehem which indicates the town existed as early as the 7th century BC … and probably, earlier. See http://news.discovery.com/history/seal-bethlehem-jesus-120523.html
In complete contrast, at http://phys.org/print256900661.html … a paper has quickly been written up and published in order to rebuke the discovery by European space scientists and astronomers that said they could find no evidence, out there, of dark matter in our galaxy (or that part of the galaxy they looked at). The new paper, as one might have suspected, claims the researchers at the heart of the earlier study were 'incorrect' and had based their observations on an 'invalid assumption' of the motions of the stars within and above the plane of the galaxy. Presumably the assumptions they base their ideas on is valid – or more valid than the other group. It looks very much like the dog won't let it's teeth loose of the dark matter calculation – but what might the vested interests be? Apparently, according to the new paper, they have been able to make the dark matter reappear – just like that (as Tommy Cooper might have said). It has been there all the time. Not only that, the dark matter is in fact, according to their 'data driven' assumptions, is in greater amounts than previously thought possible. That is a bit like having your cake and sticking candles on top of it, but that is the gist of what is being said. Dark Matter is thickest in the area around the Sun, exactly where the other lot could not find it.