Irreplaceable-Spark

The entire confirmation process is sometimes over before virtually anyone knows it has begun. The Senate confirmed James Byrnes in 1941 on the same day that President Franklin Roosevelt nominated him. Four years later, Roosevelt’s nomination of Harold Burton languished longer (for a single day).

In 1962, the Senate confirmed White without even a recorded vote, only a few hours after the Judiciary Committee held a very brief hearing.

The confirmation process has taken longer in recent decades, in part because it has become more formal and complicated. Vetting by the Justice Department, background checks by the FBI, and evaluations by the American Bar Association, for example, all add to the timetable.

NASA Astronaut Breaks Down Space Scenes From Film & TV | WIRED

Two artist records were set for lesser-known names. An arresting Caravaggesque portrait by Adam de Coster, A young woman holding a distaff before a lit candle (est $1.5m-$2m), made $4.1m ($4.85m with fees), and Willem Drost’s Allegory of Flora, circa 1650s (est $400,000-600,000), was chased by six bidders to $3.9m ($4.6m with fees). But a slew of high-valued pictures that were bought in dragged down the potential total, including a rare-to-market painting by Francisco de Zurbarán and a still-life attributed to Velásquez. “We didn’t move everything I would have liked to”, says Christopher Apostle, Sotheby’s head of the Old Master Paintings department. “Buyers are showing a real selectivity”. But, he adds, “As long as [a picture] is very, very good, the name becomes less important”.

Ohh, a forgery! I am looking forward to seeing how this controversy plays out.

Although a DNA analysis two years ago had strongly suggested that the teeth were those of Gauguin, a strontium isotope analysis by Petrus le Roux of the University of Cape Town now confirms that the teeth had belonged to someone brought up between the ages of two and seven with the diet of the Lima region (Gauguin was there until he was six). The next step was to obtain a sample of DNA from Marcel Tai Gauguin, a retired Tahitian builder. Now aged 68, he claims to be the grandson of one of Paul’s local mistresses, Pauura a Tai. Marcel’s Y chromosome was found to match that of the European skeleton at Fuerte Bulnes. This confirms that Marcel is descended from the artist. Boyle-Turner is convinced that the Fuerte Bulnes bones, the Hiva Oa teeth and Marcel all represent different generations of the Gauguin family: “The scientific evidence is conclusive in showing that the bones are indeed those of Clovis, matching the DNA sample taken from Marcel. Strontium isotope studies also convincingly point to Paul Gauguin as the owner of the teeth found buried in the well in the Marquesas.” 

The origin of the European bison has long puzzled scientists. But new research suggests the living bovid actually is the result of two extinct animals, the steppe bison and the aurochs (cattle-ancestors), mating some 120,000 years ago.

This hybridization story "challenges the way we think about how species form," says study senior author Alan Cooper of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA at the University of Adelaide...

Although the animal's DNA showed that it was a hybrid between aurochs and steppe bison, the scientists didn't know what this animal's life was like, what happened to the hybrid species, or what it even looked like.

But luckily, some witnesses left unmistakable evidence behind: cave drawings of both the hybrid and the steppe bison.

"We contacted French cave art researchers who happily told us that you can see two quite different forms of bison in the cave art," which the experts had never understood, Cooper says. "They'd been put down to regional artistic differences or cultural differences."