The Mystery of Machu Picchu
	A 2007 poll in which 100 million people participated included the Inca city of Machu Picchu amongst the world's new 7 wonders. Machu Picchu is shrouded in mystery, situated as it is on the top of the Andes at 4,000 m (13,300 ft) altitude. At the same time, it could have been an astronomic observatory and religious center. Once, Machu Picchu was located 100 km (62 mi) north of the Inca capital of Cuzco. It was inhabited by about 1, ... [read more >>]
	24 April 2008, 09:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Fastest Raising Mountains
	The Sino-Tibetan mountainous chain, also called the "the Alps of Sichuan", are located between Tibet and China. The highest peak is Gongga (7,556 m or 25,186 ft), China's highest peak outside Himalaya, located in the Hengduan Mountains. The Sino-Tibetan chain is the place on Earth where the terrestrial crust experiences its highest rising rhythm: 12 cm (4.8 in) per year, much faster than in Himalaya, Andes, Rocky o ... [read more >>]
	11 April 2008, 08:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Amazing Monolithic Churches of Ethiopia
	Ethiopia is the only African country that kept its own language and writing for over 25 centuries and the only African country with a strictly national writing system. Christianity rooted in Ethiopia starting the 4th century. The kingdom of Aksum was at its peak. Ezana, the most illustrious king of this dynasty, chose as counselors two Syrian Christians, Frumentius and Aedesius. The first was invested bishop by the Saint Athanasius of Alex ... [read more >>]
	08 April 2008, 09:21GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Neutron Stars May Also Have Mountains
	According to new computer simulations, not only rocky moons and planets may have distinctive topographic features such as mountains, but neutron stars may have them as well. The rotational spin around their axis could produce so powerful distortions in the fabric of space-time that they could actually lead to gravitational waves. In fact, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity predicted that the motion of asymmetrical objects in spac ... [read more >>]
	01 April 2008, 04:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

African Mountain Glaciers Will Be Gone in 30 Years
	Ancient Greeks and Egyptians talked about the Mountains of the Moon as the source of the Nile River. Indeed, the Ruwenzori Mountains, located between Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo, represent the highest water source for the Nile (with peaks over 16,000 ft (4,900 m)) and one of the few equatorial mountains with an ice cap. But now WWF and National Geographic signals that the mountains have lost 50% of their ice crown in the last ... [read more >>]
	26 March 2008, 05:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

We Are Losing the Mountain Glaciers Twice Faster: up to 1.4 m (4.6 ft) per Year
	We are losing our mountain glaciers, and we're losing them increasingly fast. A report made by the World Glacier Monitoring Service (WGMS), supported by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), shows that the speed of glacier melting has increased by more than twice from 1980, being a serious clime change indicator. Average glacial shrinkage has increased from 30 cm (1 ft) per year between 1980 and 1999, to 0.5 m o ... [read more >>]
	21 March 2008, 05:47GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Mountains of the Aboriginal Paintings
	Australia is the lowest and flattest continent. Some mountains punctuate its relief, but they could be seen as mere hills in other areas. For example, the highest Australian peak is Kosciusko (New South Wales): 2,230 m (7,430 ft) tall.Yet, they attract mountaineering amateurs and, during the winter, they are the only snowed places on the continent where people can ski. Grampians Mountains are located in western Victoria, in the southwe ... [read more >>]
	19 March 2008, 16:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Kalash: The People of the Nine Skies
	These people are said to descend from the soldiers of Alexander the Great, stranded and established in foreign lands. Kalash people call the peak of the mountains with a word that does not require explanations: Olympus. The discovery in the '80s of Greek inscriptions in a former Kalash area in Afghanistan further came to strengthen this opinion. Ancient Greeks traded with inhabitants of very remote areas, like Himalaya and Hindu-K ... [read more >>]
	18 March 2008, 16:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

7 Things About Tibetans
	1. Tibet is a large territory (about one third that of the US) comprising a large part of the Himalaya mountain chain. It is the highest country in the world, most of the territory being located at altitudes of 3,000-4,000 m (10,000-13,330 ft), while the mountain peaks overpass 8,000 m (26,660 ft). It would be a cold, wild and uninhabitable territory but, because of its location at the same altitude with Sahara, the plains and the valleys ... [read more >>]
	20 February 2008, 14:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

This Is The Lost World: Roraima
	The name Tepui ("house of gods") comes from the language of the Pemon Indians and refers to the table-top mountain encountered only in the Guayana highlands of northern South America. Tepuis are isolated mountains, rising abruptly from the rain forest or savanna, and not forming chains, things that makes them have of a unique variety of endemic plant and animal species. Angel Falls, the world's tallest waterfal ... [read more >>]
	15 February 2008, 08:52GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

10 Things About the Japanese Civilization
	1. Japan is an archipelago made of 4 large islands: Honshū (the "mainland"), Shikoku, Kyūshū and Hokkaidō, and by numerous small islands and islets. The center of the country is crosses by the Japanese Alps, volcanic mountains that make 80 % of the surface of the country and which reach the highest point in Fujiyama ("Sacred Mountain"), 3,776 m (12,600 ft) in altitude, crowned by ete ... [read more >>]
	14 February 2008, 11:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The American Chamois is White: Mountain Goat
	Together with the bighorn sheep, the mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) is one of the symbols of the Rocky Mountains, inhabiting their rough and barren cliffs and executing amazing stunts amongst the rocks. Today, no more than 5,000 mountain goats are found, about 1,500-2,000 being encountered in the Glacier National Park (Montana) and Olympic Mountains (Washington), places in which they were transferred and quickly adapted. ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 09:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Largest Shrew Ever: as Big as a Cat!
	This is the elephant of all shrews. Africans call them sengi, Europeans call them elephant shrews because they resemble giant shrews with long trunk-like flexible snouts. Surprisingly, they were right in a proportion of 50%: DNA has revealed that they are indeed related to elephants, and not to actual shrews, which are related to hedgehogs and moles. They are considered living fossils, restricted to Africa, that have remained unchanged for ... [read more >>]
	01 February 2008, 02:49GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

9 Amazing Things About Andes
	1. The Andes, this backbone of South America, have a length of 7,600 km (4,800 mi), covering a surface of 2 million square km (800,000 square mi), and having an average height of about 4,000 m (13,000 ft). This is the longest terrestrial mountain range (longer chains are found on the bottom of the oceans). 2. The highest peak of the Andes is Aconcagua (6,962 m / 22,841 ft), in northwestern Argentina. This is the highest mountain in the ... [read more >>]
	28 January 2008, 16:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Mountains' Uplift Created Man
	Humans evolved from apes in a savanna environment. But what forced this environmental change? In a study published in the journal "Geotimes", a husband-and-wife team of geologists, at the University of Utah, shows that the uplift of the mountains from East Africa determined our emergence on Earth. "Tectonics [movement of Earth’s crust] was ultimately responsible for the evolution of humankind", wrote Royhan and Nah ... [read more >>]
	20 December 2007, 04:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Do/Did Mountains Influence Humans?
	The highest mountain in the world is Himalaya: its Chomolungma peak reaches 8,848 m (27,000 ft) in height and its next 170 peaks are all over 7,000 m (23,300 ft) tall, being the next on the worldwide scale! The largest freestanding mountain in the world is Africa's Kilimanjaro: 5,895 m (19,650 ft) with its highest peak, The Uhuru. For each added 300 m (1,000 ft) in altitude, the overall temperature decreases by 1.8' C. Varia ... [read more >>]
	13 December 2007, 14:07GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Bear-Sized Armadillo!
	You could not put this one into an armadillo race. In fact, you could not hold it. That's because ancient armadillos were really big. Now, an American team has described in the "Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology" a new large fossil species based on a partial skeleton discovered up in the Andes in northern Chile. The new species lived 18 million years ago, and the fossils were found in 2004. "When we collected this ... [read more >>]
	13 December 2007, 05:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Country of Queen of Sheba
	In a historical aspect, the “Bible� talks about the Queen of Sheba (named Makeda in the Ethiopian tradition and Bilqis in the Islamic tradition), who traveled to Jerusalem to behold the fame of the wise King Solomon, with a very large equipage of camels carrying large amounts of spices, gold and gemstones. Many researchers believe Sheba was located where Yemen is today. Unlike the typical image of Arabia, of sand dunes, camels and c ... [read more >>]
	08 December 2007, 07:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Is This the Footprint of Yeti, the Abominable Snowman of Himalaya?
	Yeti, also called the "abominable snowman", represents the most fascinating legend of the Himalaya. Stories tell about a huge ape-like creature, bipedal (walking on two feet), with small ears and long red hair. And the stories do not originate from the territory of Himalaya, but they also come from the mountains of southwestern China. Moreover, unlike Big Foot or Chupacabra, Yeti has a palaeontological record: Gigantopithec ... [read more >>]
	03 December 2007, 02:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

About Mountain Gorillas
	Gorillas split from the branch that evolved towards humans and chimps about 10 million years ago, thus gorillas are equally related to us as to chimps. Gorillas have been split in two species. Western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla) have silverback males (the male leader of a gorilla family has the back whitish) with a very large white back stripe and nostrils diffusely delimited. The eastern gorilla (Gorilla beringei) has two forms. Th ... [read more >>]
	26 November 2007, 16:05GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Kilimanjaro, The Highest African Mountain: Records and Puzzles
	It is considered the roof of Africa. When German missionaries reported in 1848 a snow-covered mountain in equatorial Africa, everybody in Europe laughed. But later expedition confirmed this. Kilimanjaro is located in northeastern Tanzania, close to the border with Kenya, standing at only 3 degrees south of Equator (330 km). Kilima Njaro means Shining Mountains in Swahili language. Masai people call it Oldoinyo Oibor (White Mountain). ... [read more >>]
	21 November 2007, 10:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Makes Panda Special?
	The rarity and the tame look of the giant panda, resembling a living teddy bear, transformed this animal into the symbol of the fight for the preservation of endangered species. But have you ever thought that what you see is a bear? An odd bear, but a real bear! The line that led to panda appeared about 12 million years ago, and the oldest known panda species, Ailuropoda microta, was half the size of the modern species, Ailuropoda mela ... [read more >>]
	27 October 2007, 07:38GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How to Save the Pandas
	This is the emblematic animal for our planet’s endangered fauna. But during the last 15 years, the situation has improved: the population of giant pandas has grown from 1,100 to 1,600. A 40 % increase, over a territory of 23,000 square km. Panda requires not altered/slightly altered environments, in the middle mountains over 2,000 m (6,000 ft) of the Yangtze basin, in southeastern China, in the provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu ( ... [read more >>]
	15 September 2007, 13:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Who Are the Chechens?
	"Theater of a continuous war". This is how an English historian described the Caucasus region two hundred years ago. In 1832, the Russian poet wrote about the Chechens: "Their most priced right is their freedom; their law and the war". The will of breaking off any yoke and the readiness for combat helped the Chechens fight against any foreign occupant. "Mother Russia is big because there is always somebody ... [read more >>]
	06 September 2007, 17:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Antarctica's Mountain Formation, Linked to New Zealand's Mountains!
	Antarctica is the continent of the superlatives: the coldest (the record: - 94.5o C), the driest (20 mm annually), the remotest and the highest continent, with an average height of 2,450 m or 8,170 ft (the second highest continent, Asia is just 960 m (3,200 ft) high). The Transantarctic Mountains across the frozen continent split the continent in two. These mountains are connected with alpine chains in South America, that’s why they ar ... [read more >>]
	25 July 2007, 03:55GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Egg Laying Mammal Found Alive in the Mountains of New Guinea
	This living fossil was thought to have been extinct. Till recently, an expedition on Papua's Cyclops Mountains revealed that the egg-laying mammal, baptized after the famous TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough, is still alive, as proven by burrows and tracks. Attenborough's long-beaked echidna is known to science only through a 1961 specimen, found in a Dutch museum. The month-long expedition made by a team from the Zoologic ... [read more >>]
	17 July 2007, 07:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The First Highway on Mount Everest, Built by China
	Conquering the Everest will soon cease to be an adventure. The Chinese government is going to build a "highway" on Mount Everest to ease the access of the Olympic torch on this course. The road will have a length of about 108 km (67 km) and will cost approximately $ 20 millions. The project will turn a 108-km rough road linking Tingri County of Xigaze Prefecture at the foot of the mountain to the Base Camp into a bl ... [read more >>]
	19 June 2007, 12:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Explosions to See how Continents Collided
	This is the roof of the world. The way the highest mountainous chain (Himalaya) and plateau (Tibet) on Earth have formed has always fascinated scientists. Cornell geologist Larry Brown is lead-researcher of an international seismic profiling team that has been working for more than 15 years in Tibet, using explosions to probe the deep earth and find how continents collided millions of years ago. The project, named INDEPTH (I ... [read more >>]
	07 May 2007, 05:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Himalaya's Records
	If you look on a world map, you will see a huge brown arch, 2,700 km (1,700 mi) long, stretching from Indus to Brahmaputra, and 250-500 km (140-280 mi) wide crossing the Asian continent. This is Himalaya mountain chain. It is also called “the Roof of the World” as here are located the 14 highest peaks in the world, all over 8,000 m (26,700 ft). Over 170 peaks are over 7,000 m (23,300 ft) and countless over 6,000 m (20,000 ft)! The m ... [read more >>]
	22 March 2007, 10:51GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did Andes Emerge?
	The Andes are the backbone of South America, a symbol were the greatest civilization in the New World emerged, namely the Inca Empire. Now a team of Australian geophysicists believe they might have solved the long-standing puzzle of how the Andes mountain range emerged. By making the first 3D simulations of the way certain tectonic plates slide underneath one another (subduct), they found that the edges of large plates, l ... [read more >>]
	15 March 2007, 07:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia